Major exchanges Bybit and Australia-based Swyftx laid off a third of their workforce this week after Kraken announced job cuts, due to a deepening of the currency's winter.
Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit, unveiled a reorganization plan that calls for a significant reduction in the company's staff across different verticals.
He said we are saddened by the fact that the reorganization will affect many of our dear Bybuddies and some of our oldest friends.
The percentage of layoffs was 30%, and those who were affected would receive additional three months of pay, according to independent reporter Colin Wu.
In June, Bybit reported that it made the first round of layoffs without publicizing the move, claiming unsustainable expansion.
In just two years, Bybit's staff had gone from a few hundred to over 2,000.
It's important to make sure Bybit has the right structure and resources in place to navigate the market slowdown, and it's nimble enough to seize the many opportunities ahead, said Zhou.
After the collapse of FTX, Bybit established a $100 million support fund on November 24 to give institutional traders access to liquidity.
The fund was distributed at a 0% interest rate and made available to qualified high-frequency trading firms and market makers.
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Each candidate was only eligible to receive a maximum of $10 million, with the understanding that the money will be used for spot and perpetual ether trading on Bybit.
Swyftx, an Australian-based criptocurrency exchange, has announced the layoff of 90 employees in anticipation of the worst-case scenario that could result in the fallout of FTX and a decline in global trading volumes.
Swyftx co-CEO Alex Harper announced the job cuts on December 5 and noted that the company was not immune to the repercussions of the collapse of the exchange despite having no exposure to FTX.
As a result of the drop in global trade volumes during H1 next year and the potential for more black swan-type events, Harper said we have to prepare in advance for a worst-case scenario.
Harper said that making the difficult decision was vital to surviving the protracted winter of criptocurrencies.
Our business is well-positioned to weather events like FTX. He said that we don't exist in isolation from the market and that is why we are acting quickly and acting early by reducing the size of our team.
The recent round of staff reductions came after another round of staff reductions in August 2022, when 74 employees, or 21% of the company's workforce, were let go.
Harper said when the market peaked in 2021, the company grew too fast, and now we are simply far larger than we need to be to operate and grow. Another Australian company affected by the FTX epidemic is Digital Surge, an Australian trading platform that stopped accepting withdrawals last month.
The exchange informed customers that withdrawals and deposits had been suspended on November 16 and they would provide further information within two weeks.
The company has not made any public statements as of the writing of this article.
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