Bybit cuts staff again as crypto-currency bear market worsens

The crypto-currency exchange Bybit announced the second round of employee layoffs, citing the deepening crypto-currency bear market.

1) Difficult decision made today, but tough times demand tough decisions. I have just announced plans to reduce our workforce as part of an ongoing re-organization of the business as we move to refocus our efforts for the deepening bear market.

– Ben Zhou (@benbybit) December 4, 2022

According to Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, the company needed to revamp its plan to adapt to the down market conditions. This would include a further reduction in its workforce. Ben Zhou believes that the right structure and resources will help the exchange take advantage of opportunities while the market downturn persists.

Earlier in June, the company reduced its workforce to build a “smaller, more agile team“. According to crypto-currency journalist James Wu, the exchange has cut up to 30 percent of its workforce, which was estimated at 2,000 at the time. The recent announcement indicates a further reduction in that number.

According to sources, the proportion of layoffs is expected to be 20% to 30%, with some partial layoffs as high as 50%. Bybit has grown from hundreds to over 2000 in 2 years.

– Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 20, 2022

Ben Zhou said that the layoff of employees will affect all sectors. He said, “For our affected colleagues, we will try to make this process as smooth as possible and take care of everyone’s needs as much as we can.“

Is the crypto-currency bear market deepening?

After the major deleveraging of the crypto market in May and June following the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, the market began to slowly recover. By October, there were suggestions that the crypto winter was almost over. That is, until the collapse of FTX.

According to a report from Coinbase Global, the collapse of FTX and Alameda research set back the recovery by several months and deepened the bear market. Coinbase cited the revelation of the affected companies as the reason. Similarly, ETC Group founder and CEO Bradley Duke noted that the collapse would affect investor confidence and starve the ecosystem of liquidity.

After the FTX collapse, crypto-currency prices plummeted, bringing the market cap down to less than $800 billion. However, the current global crypto-currency market cap is $895 billion, indicating a slight rebound.

Widespread layoffs at crypto-currency companies

Bybit isn’t the only company cutting its workforce to cope with the current bearish market conditions. Recently, Kraken also announced a 30% reduction in its workforce, which equates to about 1,100 employees. Coinbase and Bitso have also recently reduced their workforce. Should the crypto-currency bear market continue, other companies will inevitably follow Bybit’s lead and reduce their workforce again.