The extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market over the past few months has forced Coinbase, Bybit and Cryptocom to reduce headcounts. Now Indian trading platform Wold has joined the league and announced a massive 30% layoff, counting Pantera and Coinbase as investors.
walled lay-off
According to a corporate communication available on its website, co-founder and CEO Darshan Bathija said that the decision to reduce the workforce was taken last Friday (June 17), and it was due to the economic slowdown and prolonged market slowdown. was inspired by.
In addition, Wald will also implement a 50% cut in executive remuneration, halt most vendor engagements, slow down hiring and reduce spending on marketing.
Bathhija said the shortage has been impacted in every team in the organization with a bias towards marketing and HR as the company plans to slow down efforts involving these teams.
Earlier this month, Coinbase cut its global workforce by 1,100, of which 8% are believed to be from India operations. Bybit laid off an undisclosed number of its 2000-strong workforce, while Cryptocom reduced its staff members by 5%, which employs about 260 employees. Similarly, crypto exchange Gemini announced its first job cut, where it will lay off 10% of its current workforce.
Fighting Crypto Winter
The Singapore-headquartered startup attributed the “painful” decision to uncertain market conditions and “uncertainty in the eyes of customers” due to the current turmoil in the market. Bathija acknowledged that Wald continued hiring into 2022 regardless of early signs of an economic slowdown.
“We know that resilient companies are built during bear markets. Sanju and I started Wold during the last crypto winter and we are here because we carefully managed expenses back then. We believe these measures are necessary. So that we are very strong in the long term,” he said.
Employees affected by layoffs will receive two months’ salary as severance benefit, retaining the signing/joining bonus, and medical insurance for themselves and their families for 12 months. Bathija said that Wold will also help outgoing employees find employment.
bouquet of services
In addition to trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, BAT, XLM, USDT, USDC, BUSD, TUSD and DAI, Vault also provides some creation services for crypto investors. These include cryptocurrency-leveraged fixed deposits and lending and lending. Although Wald is headquartered in Singapore, most of its employees are based in India.
Founded in 2018 by Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurien, Wald has raised $27 million to date. The previous funding round was concluded in July 2021, when it raised $25 million in Series A funding led by PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s Weller Ventures. Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, CMT Digital, Robert Leshner, Cadenza Capital and Gumi Cryptos also participated in this funding round.
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