Yet another round of redundancies will contribute to growing unease for those working in the crypto space, with little sign that the market will show improvement any time soon.
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Layoffs in the crypto industry are showing no sign of slowing down as we enter 2023.
The NFT marketplace SuperRare has become the latest to confirm that it's making painful cutbacks — and 30% of its staff are being let go.
On Twitter, CEO John Crain shared a screenshot of a Slack message sent to colleagues, which said:
"Startups are a balancing act of managing rapid growth while doing everything possible to conserve limited resources. During the bull run, we grew in tandem with the market. In recent months, it's become clear that this aggressive growth was unsustainable: we overhired, and I take full ownership of this mistake."
Crain said his team is "doing everything we can to help them transition to new opportunities and support them in their future endeavors" — adding that their contributions "will forever be a part of our story."
The entrepreneur is still bullish on the opportunities presented by Web3, NFTs, digital art, DeFi and governance, with his note concluding:
"We are facing headwinds, yes — but there remains an incredible uncaptured opportunity as we continue building something totally new: a global digital art renaissance that is transparent, fair and that anyone can access from anywhere in the world."
SuperRare isn't the first crypto business to make substantial redundancies, nor will it be the last. Back in July, OpenSea slashed 20% of its workforce as NFT trading volumes plummeted, and warned a "prolonged downturn" is possible.
And Coinbase has also admitted that it made similar mistakes to SuperRare during the bull run in 2020 and 2021. When the exchange cut 18% of jobs last June — four months after vowing to increase its ranks by 2,000 staff — Brian Armstrong conceded the company "grew too quickly."
Yet another round of redundancies will contribute to growing unease for those working in the crypto space, with little sign that the market will show improvement any time soon.
Businesses in the sector — some of whom spent countless millions on advertising when the market was booming — are facing difficult questions about why they weren't better prepared for an inevitable crypto winter.
And these swingeing job cuts could also have other ramifications. Talented professionals may leave the sector for good, while high levels of uncertainty could end up being extremely offputting for those who might have been interested in working in this fast-moving sector.
