Protocol Labs to cut 21% of its staff amid crypto winter

The team behind the development of the decentralized Filecoin platform, Protocol Labs, announced it would lay off 89 employees (about 21% of the workforce). The news was reported by founder Juan Benet.

“As you know, this has been an extremely difficult global downturn across the world and in the crypto industry in particular. High inflation, high interest rates, and weak investment have shaken companies around the world,” he wrote.

According to Benet, in recent quarters Protocol Labs has significantly reduced costs to weather the crypto winter, but this proved insufficient. He noted that the company ‘made the hard decision to cut staff’, despite diligent work to avoid this.

The laid-off employees at Protocol Labs will be offered an ‘enhanced severance package’ and assistance in finding new employment.

In January 2023, media reported that Google planned to cut about 12,000 employees.

By March, Microsoft intends to lay off about 10,000 people. The payments company PayPal will lay off 2,000 employees or about 7% of its workforce.

Earlier this year, layoffs were reported at Coinbase, ConsenSys, Genesis Trading, Blockchain.com, Gemini, Luno, Matrixport, Chainalysis and Bittrex.