A look at the crypto firms looking to expand their workforce while others continue layoffs
Some of the biggest web3 companies, including Polygon, Dapper Labs, Coinbase, Crypto.com, etc., have declared job cuts this year to mitigate their financial woes. However, a handful of firms have managed to buck this trend and are preparing to go on massive hiring sprees in the coming months. Here’s a quick summary of these firms and their ambitious expansion plans.
Even with most tokens making significant gains this year, several crypto firms are still uneasy about the contagion effects of 2022. As such, some of the biggest web3 companies, including Polygon, Dapper Labs, Coinbase, Crypto.com, etc., have declared job cuts this year to ease their financial woes. However, a handful of firms have managed to buck this trend and are preparing to go on massive hiring sprees in the coming months. Here’s a quick summary of these firms and their ambitious expansion plans.
Circle to increase the workforce by 15 to 25 percent
Circle, the issuer of the USD Coin (USDC), wants to increase its workforce by 15 to 25 percent. The company has been consistently growing its workforce since 2021. It doubled the number of employees from 450 at the end of 2021 to 900 by the end of 2022. And now the latest round of hiring will see the workforce increase by 135 to 225 employees.
The announcement to expand its workforce comes just a month after Circle canceled its plans to take Concord Acquisition public, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). This deal was announced in 2021, valuing Circle at $4.5 billion. The valuation was even increased in February 2022, when Circle entered a $9 billion company.
However, Circle’s plans to go public have been shelved for now. The company’s chief financial officer, Jeremy Fox-Green, has stated that it remains an option that the company can explore when market conditions improve. For now, Jeremy believes the crypto industry needs to distance itself from the Luna and FTX collapses before appealing to public market investors.
Ripple is looking to build its engineering team
According to the careers page, Ripple had 76 vacancies at the time of writing. A large portion of these openings were for engineering roles, along with several other opportunities in sales, human resources, design, legal, finance and operations. The locations also varied, with openings in India, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Australia and the US
Mastercard wants to add 500 more employees
Payments giant Mastercard wants to hire 500 employees for its upcoming cryptocurrency and digital currency consulting division. The announcement was part of the company’s February 15 blog post, titled “Mastercard expands advisory with practice dedicated to crypto, open banking and ESG.”
Mastercard has been offering consulting services for several years now and currently employs 2,000 employees for the same. Now, with the upcoming addition of crypto consulting services, Mastercard plans to add 500 more college graduates and young professionals to its team.
Binance wants to increase its workforce by 15-30% by 2023
The world’s largest crypto exchange has very ambitious plans for the year. An article by Bitcoinist, which was also reposted by Binance, says the exchange is looking to increase its workforce by 15 to 30 percent. This will add to the 5,000 employees Binance brought on board in 2021. What’s also impressive is that the exchange hasn’t announced any layoffs in recent months, despite most of its peers letting go of employees en masse. At the time of writing, the company had almost 500 openings on the website.
Dubai’s crypto regulator wants to increase its workforce by 4 times
It is not only crypto exchanges and payment companies that want to build their human resources. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) plans to quadruple its workforce in response to the hundreds of license applications it has received in recent months. Dubai is pushing to become an Asian crypto hub. This has caused crypto firms to flock to the gulf state, putting a heavy burden on VARA and hence the need to expand the team. VARA was established in March 2022 and currently has around 20 employees.
Conclusion
More firms reducing their workforce is a cause for concern. But even a few companies that want to build in these violent times are extremely encouraging. It shows that companies with good finances can still appear to grow, even if the rest of the market is in the dumps.
(Editing by: Anushka Sharma)
