Binance Has Laid Off Over 1,000 Staff
- Binance was named among the companies with some of the unhappiest workers in the crypto industry.
- In May, Binance confirmed that it was laying off 20% of its workforce to reallocate its resources.
- The recent job cuts mostly affected people in India who worked in the customer service department.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance laid off more than 1,000 employees in recent weeks, a source told the Wall Street Journal. The crypto trading platform, which formerly boasted up to 8,000 employees, could see more than a third of its workforce reduced as a result of the ongoing exercise.
Sources revealed that the job cut was global and heavily affected those in the customer service department. A Binance representative confirmed the job cuts but did not specify the exact number.
Reports emerged in May that the crypto exchange had commenced an exercise to reduce 20% of its workforce. At the time, Binance said the layoffs were not an economic measure but instead, a process to reallocate its resources. A representative of the exchange said at the time,
“As we prepare for the next major bull cycle, it has become clear that we need to focus on talent density across the organization to ensure we remain nimble and dynamic.
Recent reports revealed that some of the unhappiest employees in the crypto space worked at Binance alongside Gemini and Coinbase. A Binance representative said the firm sought people who “can thrive in a truly high-performance environment” and are “obsessively focused on delivering for our users.”
The Binance spokesperson said the company’s employees were trained to be “hardcore”. The spokesperson added that the company’s poor review was because it had “some who are not able to thrive in this unique, brutally fast environment, and we have to accept some negative reviews as a result.”
Binance has faced a number of difficulties since the year began, but things got heated last month after it was hit by a lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Binance also failed to secure a license in the Netherlands and had to cease operations in Belgium. French regulators also announced that the exchange was the subject of an ongoing investigation.
Impressively, Binance has managed to weather these storms and recently celebrated its sixth anniversary. Changpeng Zhao, the company’s founder, and CEO, tweeted that Binance’s experience was “never all smooth sailing.”
Zhao wrote a letter addressed to the exchange’s users, thanking them for their support. He also reflected on key events and storms the exchange has had to weather, including the Terra disaster and most recently the FTX drama, in which Binance was almost implicated had Zhao acquired the firm.
Commenting on the experience, Zhao wrote,
Even then, a few regulators or news outlets tried really hard to group Binance and FTX together. To that, I will just say: We are different. Not every investment firm on Wall Street is Madoff.
Zhao applauded the growing presence of institutional giants in the crypto space. The Binance CEO also remarked that countries with friendly crypto policies would have a huge advantage over countries that fail to adopt the industry.
I have covered some exciting stories in my career as a journalist and find blockchain-related stories very intriguing. I believe Web3 will change the world and want everyone to be a part of it.
