By James Davis
Blockchain analytics firm Nansen has announced today that it will send home 30% of its employees. While delivering the sad news on Twitter, the company’s CEO, Alex Svanevik, said Nansen would support every affected employee in transitioning.
Svanevik took full responsibility and explained his decision. In a long tweet thread, the CEO said Nansen made the expensive mistake of scaling up its workforce to pursue areas that were outside the company’s core strategy.
Svanevik also blamed the ongoing bear market as another factor that pushed Nansen to lay off some workers. He, however, went ahead to reiterate his firm’s commitment to building a sustainable business.
In late 2021, Nansen raised over $70 million in a funding round led by venture capitalist GIC. Other investors who participated include Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz.
The company provides a platform that helps crypto users easily identify blockchain addresses and their activity history.
Crypto Twitter Reacts
Crypto Twitter has welcomed the latest news from Nansen, praising Svanevik for being transparent. Arthur Cheong, the founder of Web3 investment company Defiance Capital replied to Svanevik’s tweet, saying transparent communication was the way to go. He then asked the CEO to continue building.
Some companies that replied to the tweet disclosed that they were hiring and would be happy to accommodate affected employees who qualify for various positions. These firms include Avalanche network founder Ava Labs, investment company Chapter One, and FirstMate, an NFT platform.
More Layoffs
Since the start of the year, the crypto industry has witnessed several layoffs, with crypto exchanges being the most affected.
Data from CoinGecko indicates that in January alone, over 2,800 employees working for various centralized trading platforms lost their jobs. Here are the exchanges that laid off some of their workers during that month:
Huobi Exchange sent home 20% of its workforce on January 5. The current headcount stands at 880. Coinbase followed suit, laying off over 900 employees on January 10. Three days later, Blockchain.com reduced its workforce by 20%. On January 17, Crypto.com announced it had cut ties with 176 employees. A day later, Luno revealed slashing its headcount by 35%.