A recent graduate Hao Jia believed in the potential of cryptocurrency and chose to work for a Crypto exchange company called Coinbase despite getting a job offer from a tech giant called Oracle. He was passionate and excited about working for a major cryptocurrency exchange startup called Coinbase.
Unfortunately, Coinbase has decided to lay off 18% of its present employees, let alone the new grads who got the job offer from the company. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took an abrupt but rational decision to lay off its workers to keep the startup running without economic imbalance.
He stated that the company fears that due to the recession and other several things, Bitcoin will enter into crypto winter, which can last longer than what we expect. He made a bold decision to lay off its workers to keep the company stable. However, hundreds of new grads who would’ve been fresh employees are cast out even before they got a chance to enter the work area. He also stated that this is not the work experience the Coinbase wanted for their soon-to-be employees.
Coinbase was estimated to be around $100 billion worth in April 2022. They said that they are enormous product opportunities lying ahead in Coinbase. They also stated that they are looking to hire over 2,200 employees within this year. Sadly, within a few months after making their business expansion public, they had to go through a massive lay.
Brian Armstrong believes that a massive recession is on its way, and it is the rational decision that they could come up with. Not only Coinbase, other cryptocurrency agencies, including Crypto.com, Gemini Exchange, and BlockFi, have laid off their workers too. BlockFi has relieved 20% of its employees from their work.
Global Bear Market
Almost all publicly traded markets took a big hit and started falling down. The commodities market seems not to be affected by this global crisis. But bitcoin falls over $49,000 in less than ten months. From its all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021 to $20,000, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies took a huge hit.
The stock market has also officially entered a bearish phase. The stock market was a little slow to react to the global crisis. However, it is not something new between stock and crypto analysts. Many crypto analysts have foreseen that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will enter into a crypto winter.
The charts of both stocks and cryptocurrencies have been screaming the beginning of a bear market for several months. The crypto exchange companies have made a public statement stating that these cutbacks are necessary to tackle the upcoming inflation and recession crisis. However, it is disappointing that these companies haven’t made any precautions like shorting or buying Put options to have the edge over these situations.
Bitcoin job losses have become a huge issue which caused thousands of families to suffer. Young grads like Hao Jia wanted to make a career in the crypto industry and got smacked in the face so hard. Students from foreign countries who have rejected other company offer to get into Coinbase and other similar industries are now in danger of having their Visa revoked.
Getting a job offer from an advanced startup like Coinbase speaks for these young grads’ talents. They can try to find a job in other tech companies to prevent them from getting their Visas revoked. But it won’t be an easy task to get selected because tech companies also took a huge hit in this ongoing crisis. So, it is hard for them to hire new employees.
Huge Lay Offs
Gemini and Coinbase have been the two powerful exchanges that have hired two-thirds of the total new employees in the crypto industry. Crypto companies have raised over $34 billion through global funding. This was eightfold time higher than the previous year’s funding. But in the last few months, they have started laying off their existing employees.
In some companies, there wasn’t even a proper formal relieving letter from the management. The workers only knew that they had been laid off after seeing that they were restricted from using their company’s email id and other login credentials.
Since the tech sectors took a huge hit, these laid-off employees are most likely to stay put until the recession and bear market is over. In some way, other tech companies have been laying off their employees worse than these crypto exchange companies. Nearly 4,000 employees were relieved from their roles in May month which is 781% more than what tech sector companies did last year.
Bitso, a Mexican crypto exchange company with 5 million users in Latin America, relieved 80 of its employee from their roles. It includes both new employees as well as experienced employees. Bitso was the largest crypto exchange company in Latin America.
These companies are taking necessary preventive measures to keep the production going. However, it is unjust for the employees, especially new employees who are relieved from their positions after being at work for just 30 – 40 days. Candidates like Hao Jia are regretting their decision to follow their passion and choose crypto industries while they had job offers from several other giant techs.
Binance – Counter Trend Lay Off
There is one exceptional crypto exchange company that has been hiring in this crisis instead of laying off its existing employees. Binance is a no.1 crypto exchange in the world and has its own crypto coin called BNB.
It has made a tweet that it is hiring 2,000 employees to work on the world’s biggest crypto exchange. Also, the CEO of Binance stated that the company is going into the crypto winter from a position of strength and will never return to a weaker position. To demonstrate their arm over the declining stock and crypto markets, they are massive hiring. It is such a relief to have Binance, the largest crypto exchange, offer jobs that would redeem countless lives of young candidates like Hao Jia.