While other cryptocurrency companies are cutting staff, crypto exchange Binance said Wednesday (June 15) it was hiring for 2,000 positions.
“It was not easy saying no to Super Bowl ads, stadium naming rights, large sponsor deals a few months ago, but we did. Today, we are hiring for 2000 open positions for #Binance,” CEO Changpeng Zhao said on Twitter.
This decision comes amid an extremely rocky moment in the crypto world, with investors selling off risky assets due to concerns that rising inflation will lead the Federal Reserve to push up interest rates, triggering a recession in the process.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Tuesday plans to cut around 1,100 jobs, the equivalent of about 18% of its workforce, the latest in a long series of companies cutting jobs as the industry enters its “winter.”
Read more: Crypto Crisis Evokes Memories of Hedge Fund’s Market-Crippling 1998 Crash
As PYMNTS noted, this is part of a larger trend that has its roots in November, when Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market began their tumble. However, it was the early May run and $45 billion collapse of TerraUSD, a non-fiat-backed stablecoin that was the third-largest digital asset by market capitalization, and its partner token LUNA, that led to the rising sense of panic.
And then there’s crypto lending platform Celsius, which has reportedly hired restructuring lawyers. This week saw the company halt withdrawals, helping kick off the market panic.
Learn more: Is Tether Due for $80B Day of Reckoning?
And leading stablecoin Tether was forced to issue a statement strenuously denying rumors that the investments in the reserve fund backing the USDT dollar peg were backed by illiquid Asian commercial paper — a kind of short-term corporate debt — selling at a steep discount. The company also denied any losses in the collapse of Celsius.
“These rumors are completely false and likely spread to induce further panic in order to generate additional profits from an already stressed market,” Tether said, adding that 47% of its reserves are now in U.S. treasuries and commercial paper holdings have been reduced to under 25%.
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