Crypto software company ConsenSys confirms 11% cut in workforce

ETHEREUM software company ConsenSys confirmed that it’s eliminating 96 positions, representing 11 per cent of the crypto firm’s total workforce.

The job cuts are the latest amid a wave of layoffs among major digital-asset companies in recent weeks. Coinbase Global cut 20 per cent of its staff, which is around 950 people, while crypto-friendly bank Silvergate Capital laid off 40 per cent of its force. Crypto lender Genesis eliminated 30 per cent of employees with another exchange Huobi firing 20 per cent. Trade publication CoinDesk first reported the ConsenSys cuts last week.

The New York City-based company is a major investor behind some of the biggest Ethereum-based platforms such as crypto wallet MetaMask. ConsenSys chief executive Joseph Lubin said some of the poorly behaved actors in the industry have brought a reckoning on themselves, which has cast a broad pall on the entire ecosystem, according to a Jan 18 statement.

“To manage through these cycles, we regularly engage in conservative financial planning and take appropriate steps to ensure we have the resources to fulfil our vision,” Lubin said in the statement. “Each of the impacted employees will be notified today by their manager.”

Ethereum has become the world’s most commercially important blockchain platform, where it hosts a range of applications from decentralised exchanges to automated market makers. Lubin is an early supporter of the blockchain network.

ConsenSys completed a US$450 million funding round at the valuation of over US$7 billion in March, receiving one of the largest investments in crypto last year. BLOOMBERG