Polkadot developer Parity Technologies to cut 30% of staff

The Parity Technologies firm behind the Polkadot project will lay off 30% of its staff, or about 100 employees. Bloomberg reports this, citing an internal letter.

The decision to cut jobs is part of the company’s plan to pivot toward its own technologies.

“About 30% of fewer than 400 employees will see their roles or contracts with Parity terminated within a several-month transition period. We will double our efforts to enable those affected to continue contributing to Polkadot,” said the company’s CEO, Bjorn Wagner.

Parity representatives had already hinted at upcoming cuts in mid-October.

5/ At this stage of Polkadot’s growth, our conviction is that go-to-market will be more effectively driven by the broader Polkadot community.

As such, Parity is sunsetting its go-to-market functions to make room for the emergence of new ecosystem leaders beyond Parity.

— Parity Technologies (@paritytech) October 10, 2023

“At this stage of Polkadot’s growth we are convinced that go-to-market will be more effectively driven by the broader Polkadot community. Accordingly, Parity is winding down its go-to-market functions to make room for the emergence of new ecosystem leaders,” the post said.

According to Bjorn, Parity’s financial condition and regulatory status remain stable.

The development team joined the wave of mass layoffs in the industry. In October, the layoff of 150 employees was announced by Chainalysis, a security-focused company.

In the same month, the Yuga Labs studio behind the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club announced a staff restructuring.

Earlier, the roster included Robinhood, Dapper Labs, Polygon, Magic Eden, Bittrex, Luno, Blockchain.com, Huobi, Bybit, STEPN, TrueLayer, Chia Network, Protocol Labs and CertiK.