Coinbase Lays Off 18% of Workforce as Executives Prepare for Recession and 'Crypto Winter' (cnbc.com) 65
Coinbase is laying off nearly a fifth of its workforce amid a collapse in its stock and crypto prices. From a report: The cryptocurrency exchange will cut 18% of full-time jobs, according to an email sent to employees Tuesday morning. Coinbase has roughly 5,000 full-time workers, translating to a headcount reduction of around 1,100 people. Shares of Coinbase are down about 7% premarket. CEO Brian Armstrong pointed to a possible recession, and a need to manage Coinbase's burn rate and increase efficiency. He also said the company grew "too quickly" during a bull market. "We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period," Armstrong said, adding that past crypto winters have resulted in a significant decline in trading activity. "While it's hard to predict the economy or the markets, we always plan for the worst so we can operate the business through any environment." Coinbase had initially said it was pausing hiring. Two weeks later, the crypto giant announced that it was extending the freeze for the "foreseeable future." Earlier this year, Coinbase said it planned to add 2,000 jobs across product, engineering and design. Further reading: Coinbase Leaders Net $1.2 Billion in Share Sales.
5,000? (Score:3, Funny)
Why did they ever need that many employees in the first place? What were 5,000 people doing?
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... What were 5,000 people doing?
Coming up with 5,000 reasons to not do their jobs.
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And "burning" money, apparently.
Has nobody else here seen The Wolf of Wall Street?
Re: 5,000? (Score:4, Interesting)
Better question is what the other 20,000 are still doing.
However all the layoffs among the various groups. Means that this isnt a normal crypto winter it means they are preparing for extended low prices.
Re: 5,000? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they had 5,000 employees before this round of layoffs. That would leave about 4,100 employees which still seems ridiculous to me.
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Re: 5,000? (Score:3)
And all of the people will decide that Burt needs to go.
Budget cuts and all.
Re: 5,000? (Score:5, Funny)
Submitting crypto stories to Slashdot?
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Means that this isnt a normal crypto winter
What's a "normal" crypto winter? I think people forget how cold it can get.
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Re:5,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did they ever need that many employees in the first place? What were 5,000 people doing?
Submitting stories to internet news sites, commenting on internet news sites. That may sound unlikely but I have genuinely seen people pretending to believe that cryptocurrencies are a plausible investment opportunity. You don't get that for free.
Re:5,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
About 4900 of them were Astroturfing.
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Probably not far from the truth. Keeping the hype going is the essence of "crypto".
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Re:5,000? (Score:4, Funny)
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"Off?"
Amateur.
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Re:5,000? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Crypto is a currency created by wasting huge amounts of resources.
It seems fitting a crypto company operates the same way.
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You need thousands of mechanical Turks to try and convince other people via any sort of communication to prop up the price of Bitcoin because it's not worth anything
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Salespeople and marketing. Customer support (which is the same thing at that kind of company).
For Great Justice! (Score:5, Funny)
All your Coinbase are belong to us! You are on the way of destruction! Hahaha
Main screen turn on! (Score:2)
Take off every 'Zigcoin'!!
You know what you doing.
Move 'Zigcoin'.
For great justice.
Somebody set up us the crypto bomb. (Score:2)
Me love your crypto long time!
The Crypto Ragnarök is comming (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair... (Score:2)
...value was already lost to many. It's being "realized" now.
18% reduction (Score:5, Informative)
5000 x 0.18 = 900
Math is hard.
Re: 18% reduction (Score:5, Funny)
With crypomath, anything makes sense.
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With crypomath, anything makes sense.
Anything is possible at Zombo.com [zombo.com]
Math rules don't apply in the crypto bubble (Score:2)
20 people will be fired and 1700 will start running for the exit.
White raven (Score:2)
Crypto Ice Age I Hope (Score:4, Insightful)
The sooner this pyramid scheme goes away, the better.
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Things can and do simply die. I know a boomer college professor who was loaded up on telecom stocks in 2000. Think WorldCom, Lucent. He lost most of his retirement savings and his portfolio did not rebound. Many of the companies ceased to exist.
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Since crypto is too big to fail
Citation please?
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Here ya go, all you really need to know: https://decrypt.co/101302/sam-... [decrypt.co]
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There's a real simple answer to that: Absofuckinglutely not.
They're unregulated, they're proud of it, they don't "have to follow the rules", so they don't need to apply for the protections they didn't want in the first place.
And "too big to fail" is a nice myth being spread by Crypto enthusiasts that think they're actually more impactful than they actually are.
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If you 'wouldn't be surprised' it is because you are an idiot. First, crypto is hardly 'too big to fail'. 'Too big to fail' refers to the devastating impact on the overall economy that would happen if certain institutions were to fail. The impact of crypto failing would be approximately zero.
Second, bank deposits are protected because the banks have insurance from the FDIC. They pay for that insurance, and, more importantly are tightly regulated by the FDIC. None of that applies to crypto.
Both bulls and bears are missing the big picture (Score:2)
Crypto serves as a relief valve for Wall St. Big institutional players could go in, swing trade the hell out of the market (they're good at this) and make lots of money off the books they could use to bail themselves out of margin calls when short positions go south.
Well guess what happens when you have a deflating stock market and an anemic crypto market not conducive to swing trading anymore?
Ding ding ding...
Margin calls coming over the horizon.
Margin calls hedgies won't be able to survive because they wo
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No, you idoit, the FED does not 'do that with banks'. Banks buy insurance (and are regulated) by the FDIC. This protects the depositors, NOT the banks. If a bank is failing, the FDIC seizes the assets and sells them to another bank. Binance and coinbase are not members of the FDIC. They are unregulated messes that have (and deserve) no protection. Their disappearance would have virtually no impact on the economy.
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Describing a small subset of hedge fund managers and extrapolating that to "OMG it's all gonna collapse!" is a bit of a stretch.
Despite what most people seem to think, there are plenty of very large hedge funds that don't take stupid risks.
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And I'm just waiting (Score:2)
Video card prices to drop. Also, there is going to be a lot of electricity saved all around the world because people can't make money on mining easily anymore
Need An Ice Age (Score:2)
With any luck a "crypto winter" will be a permanent collapse of the crypto fraudosphere - creating paper wealth for nothing of use to anyone controlled by a few whales and deep pocket "miners" and creating a criminal industry of ransomware than only exists because of crypto ransom payments.
Once the FOMO moment of instant speculative fake wealth (hardly any of the supposed trillions in crypto wealth can be converted into real currencies) passes I expect the winter to be a permanent ice age, though cryptonuts
Is it really that surprising? (Score:2)
The War or the Tulips (Score:2)
Made glorious summer by this sun of blockchain;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the internet buried.
Let the slaughter begin.
seems companies are intent on causing a recession (Score:2)
5000??? (Score:2)
The bubble popped (Score:2)
If crypto was anything like people thought or said (Score:2)
If it was what we were told it was.
Crypto Winter? (Score:1)
Crypto gonna die. Crypto gonna die.
It's about time. Now, if can we just find a digital Dr. Kevorkian to help social media cross the rainbow bridge everything will be right with the world again.