Second round of layoffs at Crypto.com Worse than June cuts: Sources

In June, Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com laid off 260 employees, or 5% of the workforce, citing the crypto bear market. Remaining employees were reportedly told at the time that these cuts were the end of the bloodletting.

“They lied,” a source at Crypto.com is now telling us Decrypt. At a quarterly “all hands” call last Friday, the company informed employees of additional layoffs.

The source, a Crypto.com employee in a management role whose identity has been verified by Decryptspoke on condition of anonymity. Decrypt confirmed the layoffs with two other current employee sources.

The latest round of cuts has not been announced. During the conversation, “management expressed that they had no intention of going public,” the source says. “Top management is unlikely to make an announcement as after the layoffs in June they claimed that everyone’s job was safe and that no more layoffs will happen.”

Due to the company’s internal privacy practices, the employee could not provide the number of layoffs in the past month, nor the percentage of remaining employees affected. But the source says the size of this round of cuts “is much larger than the first.”

According to the source, a number of factors are at play as the cuts continue. The layoffs in June targeted “flexible” employees such as customer service and growth roles – employees less in demand as customer numbers and trading volume on the platform fell. This round, the source said, affected people.from critical products such as stock exchanges, apps and wallets.”

The move is very similar to what happened at rival crypto exchange Gemini, which also adopted one second set of layoffs in mid-July, after making headlines for heralds cutbacks on June 2.

A spokesperson for Crypto.com did not confirm details, nor the number of layoffs beyond those announced in June, but provided a brief statement.

“We announced reductions in June and since then have been optimizing our workforce to adapt to current external economic headwinds,” the spokesperson said. “We have a strong balance sheet and will continue to invest in product, engineering and brand partnerships moving forward.”

In announcing its cuts in June, Crypto.com had described its staff as “need-based” and said hiring would resume when conditions improved. Yesterday, Crypto.com announced that it will be the first cryptocurrency exchange to operate under Canada’s new regulatory regime.

Still, cost cutting is becoming a top priority at Crypto.com.

“The company is cutting back to the bare minimum to survive the likely long bear market – internal initiatives are about trying to save every penny,” the source said.

Before the cuts, about 45% of Crypto.com’s entire employee base was hired between 2021 and 2022, the source said. “The massive hiring was meant for growth, and the majority of these – around 1,300 employees – are no longer needed in the current context.”

Decrypt reviewed a dozen layoff posts from former Crypto.com employees posted on LinkedIn in the past week alone. Many used the same framing, citing “current market conditions” and describing their layoffs as part of the June cuts.

Now, similar posts are appearing on the employer review site Glassdoor, and appear to be more recent.

“The company is hiding the fact that it has laid off more than 1,000 employees, although it officially announced to lay off 260,” wrote a self-described current Crypto.com employee on July 10. “They’ve removed the business directory, so we can’t see the numbers going down. It’s not good for morale to see that 1/3 of the invite list at your next meeting are disabled accounts.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to attribute Crypto.com’s comment to a company spokesperson.