Mexican cryptocurrency exchange unicorn Bitso laid off 25% of its staff on Tuesday following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the domino effect that has already led another three crypto companies to declare bankruptcy.
People familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private told Bloomberg Línea that the downsizing is due to recent events in the crypto market.
Bitso, which operates in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, said in a statement that “like all companies, we assess our business priorities regularly and make appropriate structural adjustments”.
“We work in a fast-paced industry that requires us to constantly redeploy our high-value skills so that we can move more and more quickly toward where customers want us to be, considering the long-term needs of our business, the market and the industry. Bitso will continue to invest in the development of new products to fulfill its mission of making crypto useful, and ensure that the company maintains its leadership and strength in the region,” said the company, without providing figures of how many people were laid off.
This is Bitso’s second jobs cut in 2022. The first mass layoff was in May when the cryptocurrency exchange laid off 80 people in Mexico, the only market affected on that occasion.
At that time, Bitso reported that the layoffs were due to the accelerated dynamics of the industry that “require us to constantly rethink the skills we need to be able to move even faster to where our clients need us to be, taking into account the long-term development of the market and industry”.
Bitso is seeing a crisis of confidence among some clients after the collapse of FTX, one of the largest exchanges in the world.OIn social media, users have demanded more transparency of where their assets are located, and which led the company to a transparency roadmap, as reported by Reuters.
