Key Takeaways:
- The Swyftx CEOs stated that 74 colleagues had to be laid off owing to current economic conditions.
- CEO’s described the move as “a last resort,” adding that their focus was on the wellbeing and future of the redundant employees.
Leading Australian crypto exchange Swyftx has laid off 21% of its staff to cut costs.
The Brisbane-based crypto exchange’s CEO, Alex Harper and Ryan Parsons, stated that 74 colleagues had to be laid off owing to current economic conditions.
Swyftx’s co-chiefs note that the decision to reduce the size of the business was “a last resort” and that their focus was on the wellbeing and future of the redundant employees.
The CEOs stated that the uncertain business environment coupled with levels of domestic inflation not seen in over two decades, rising interest rates, highly volatile markets across all asset classes, and the potential for a global recession fueled this move.
“We want to be very clear that impacting our teammates in this way is a last resort and is not, in any way, a reflection of the talent or commitment of those individuals,” Swyftx CEOs said.
They added that they were deeply grateful for everything the team members leaving them have done, and they are working to support them through this “extremely hard period.”
Among the 74 employees laid off, some worked in customer support, marketing, engineering, and other general fintech roles. In June, Swyftx announced a merger with the online share trading platform Superhero to create a $1.5 billion player with 800,000 customers in the race to build a “super app”.
The merger allows the parties to make a single platform under which users are provided access to cryptocurrency and equities trading, along with their superannuation holdings.
During the merger announcement, Superhero co-founder John Winters said that the two platforms will operate independently and that no job losses are expected.
With the latest development, Swyftx joins a growing list of crypto companies to lay off staff owing to market conditions. A few days back, Genesis Global Trading laid off 20% of its 260-person workforce.
Apart from Swyftx and Genesis, crypto platforms including Bitpanda, Crypto.com, Bitso, Buenbit, BlockFi, and Coinbase, have also laid off employees in the wake of the recent market crash.
In June, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the cryptocurrency exchange would lay off 18% of its workforce, blaming the broader market turndown.
Many experts in the Australian crypto space predict that the crypto winter and the bear market could wipe out nearly half of all Australian crypto exchanges as poor risk management and increasing instability within crypto markets can force them towards bankruptcy.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently reported that the annual Australian inflation rate is 6.1%, the highest recorded since 1990.
