Nansen – a blockchain data firm based in Singapore – has laid off about 50 people at the time of writing, suggesting the crypto winter is not fully over.
Nansen Says Goodbye to Many Employees
2022 was marred by news of many large crypto firms and companies laying off employees. Big names like Gemini in New York and Coinbase joined the ranks, with the latter initially putting off plans to triple its workforce. Originally, Coinbase had the goal to become bigger than ever in 2022 and hire loads more people. Sadly, the state of bitcoin and its many altcoin cousins brought about a quick end to those plans.
When things got even worse in the market, Coinbase said it would be laying off roughly 18 percent of its staff. Several months went by, but eventually, a time came when Coinbase was forced to let go of even more people.
Gemini also engaged in two separate layoffs. The first was in the summer of last year. The company announced it was going to let go of roughly ten percent of the people that it had employed. News spread quickly that the headcount with Gemini fell from about 1,000 people (per its LinkedIn page) to around 900.
However, many people took issue with the idea that Gemini was going to be engaging in the layoffs through Zoom calls rather than through in-person meetings. The company was still having many staff members work remotely following the coronavirus pandemic, and many of the layoffs were to occur via video screens.
2022 was arguably the worst year on record for BTC and crypto. The world’s number one digital currency by market cap initially surged beyond $68,000 per unit in November of 2021, a new all-time high, though about a year later, the currency had fallen into the mid-$16K region.
Several other digital assets followed in its footsteps, thus causing the crypto arena to lose more than $2 trillion in valuation in less than 12 months.
Nansen has suddenly joined the ongoing layoff ranks. The firm, like Coinbase, has also said that all plans to hire additional souls have been put on hold. CEO Alex Svanevik explained in an interview:
We wanted to invest and build in a tough market when others needed to scale back. This organic growth led the organization to taking on surface area that’s not truly part of Nansen’s core strategy. The new org will do fewer things but do them extremely well.
The News Follows Heavy Growth
The news comes as somewhat of a shock given that Nansen – per its LinkedIn profile – has grown rapidly over the past few years.
The company currently has about 155 people working under its roof. This is a 180 percent surge from where it stood just a little over a year ago.