By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 19th, 2024
Gemini issued a memo to all its staff nationwide notifying them of an impending layoff to help the company survive the bear market.
Gemini Trust Company, LLC recently announced a substantial staff layoff in order to weather the looming crypto winter. In a blog post, Gemini’s twin founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss further expounded on the reason for the layoff. According to them, prevailing “macroeconomic” and “geopolitical turmoil” further worsened the unsavory contraction phase. To this end, the founders stated that they had no choice but to cut down on the workforce.
“After much thought and consideration, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to part ways with approximately 10% of our workforce,” their message read.
The Gemini memo also stated that other crypto-minded businesses were also feeling the crypto winter heat. For instance, last month, fellow American crypto exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) reported a 27% drop in revenue and overall usage from a year ago. The Brian Armstrong-led company posted its Q1 earnings on May 10th, which missed analysts’ estimates and sent shares 19% lower in extended trading.
Gemini’s staff downsizing represents a first for the New York-based crypto exchange and custodian. According to data reports, the crypto firm currently has a staff force numbering over 1000. However, Gemini declined to affirm or dispute this number.
Other Gemini Measures Taken in Addition to Staff Layoff
Gemini has also shut down all physical offices to protect the privacy of affected employees. In addition, the company plans to issue a calendar invite to the retrenched staff to individually discuss severance packages in detail. Furthermore, Gemini intends to hold a company-wide meeting with the remaining workforce to discuss the future ahead.
In future operations, Gemini enjoined its workforce’s team leaders to prioritize product offerings efficiently.
“We have asked team leaders to ensure that they are focused only on products that are critical to our mission and assess whether their teams are right-sized for the current, turbulent market conditions that are likely to persist for some time”.
Gemini capped off its memo to staff on an upbeat note. The exchange asked staff to look on the bright side of things and wax stronger. According to the memo, “as painful as this moment is, we ultimately see it as an opportunity to double-down on our strongest ideas and customer-centric products so that we may be the catalyst of innovation coming out of these leaner times that will help fuel the next cycle of crypto growth and adoption.”
Other digital financially-inclined platforms to also cut staff include Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) and BitMEX.
The crypto market was hit particularly hard in the last few weeks, eventually culminating in the resounding crash of TerraUSD and LUNA. This led to the erasure of around half a trillion dollars from the crypto marketplace value, worsening trader existential crisis. Many observers now believe that the crypto winter has arrived because of the market debacle and waning trading volumes.
Crypto Winter
Crypto winter is a multiyear bear market for digital assets that occurs on a cyclical basis. During this period, there is a well-known deep contraction and loss of value across the broad market. The last crypto winter occurred between 2018 and 2020.