We’ve seen a somewhat sustained bear market for many top cryptocurrencies.
That’s having an impact, according to reports like this one at Cryptopotato, where companies are actually laying off employees.
Layoffs and downsizing are always scary, not just for the workers and their families, but for anyone else who is invested in seeing growth in a particular area or company.
Now there are broader reports that firms that are heavily focused on cryptocurrencies are trimming their organizations in anticipation of an austere winter.
We already reported on Consensys laying off 13% of its staff explained by Joe Lübeck this way:
“(Consensys) must retain, and in some cases regain, the lean and gritty startup mindset that made us who we are,” wrote Lubin in an email to staff, according to Chepicap. “We must recognize that what got us here will probably not get us there, wherever ‘there’ is. …We are going to focus much more rigorously across the different business lines on accountability, that includes financial sustainability.”
Another casualty of the downturn, reportedly, is a project called Civil that was meant to bring the transparency and verifiability of the blockchain to journalism, a field fraught with controversy and contentious drama.
Civil reports they’ve shuttered some newsrooms and laid off a good number of people, which, to some investors, is reminiscent of projects like Gcoin, a gold accountability project that ultimately didn’t make the grade.
In Civil’s case, a failed ICO was a harbinger of doom.
“In the months leading up to its most recent public failure, Civil’s severe lack of self-awareness led it to open 18 news desks around the world, presumably without regard for the cash flow required to support such a large network of content creators,” reads an anonymously authored piece on The Next Web. “According to Civil’s website, all of its news desks are still operational, somehow, despite refunding ICO investors the small amount of money raised.”
It’s depressing when these kinds of human interest projects fail, but it’s also scary when places like Consensys start cutting back on operations.
Many investors would say that if you’re reading all the technicals, you also have to read the tea leaves on these concrete moves that companies are doing. Layoffs don’t lead to ascending prices or better debt ratios or great earnings reports.
Absent some kind of strategic restructuring, we could be ready to see trouble.
With that in mind, some cryptocurrency values are actually rebounding this week, most notable, the King of all Crypto, Bitcoin, which is poised to hit the $4,000 bell. Who knows how long the bear market will last – it might not last long, and in a relatively short time frame, some of these companies may be hiring again. It all goes to show that the cryptocurrency industry is volatile, and short-term traders have to have an appetite for risk.
