Binance Boosts Hiring Amid Wave of Crypto Layoffs

In the midst of a rash of crypto layoffs, Binance is reportedly in hiring mode.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange hopes to increase its workforce by 15% to 30% this year, CEO Changpeng Zhao said at an industry conference Wednesday (Jan. 11).

“We will continue to build and hopefully we will ramp up again before the next bull market,” said Zhao, whose comments at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland were reported by CNBC.

These new hires would follow the nearly 5,000 workers the exchange added last year, Zhao told the conference.

Reached for comment by PYMNTS, a Binance spokesperson confirmed the figures from the CNBC report.

Binance’s hiring plans are happening as a number of other crypto companies cut jobs in the wake of the massive FTX collapse and a broader downturn in the industry.

Among the companies laying off workers is Coinbase, which announced Tuesday (Jan. 10) it would let go of 950 of its roughly 4,700 staffers, a 20% reduction.

“As we examined our 2023 scenarios, it became clear that we would need to reduce expenses to increase our chances of doing well in every scenario,” CEO Brian Armstrong said in a message to employees.

“While it is always painful to part ways with our fellow colleagues, there was no way to reduce our expenses significantly enough, without considering changes to headcount.”

These layoffs followed an 18% reduction in June, as well as a smaller round of firings — 65 employees — in November.

Last week brought reports that cryptocurrency lender Genesis was laying off 30% of its employees, while also considering bankruptcy.

In November, the crypto exchange Kraken — which had tripled its workforce as the crypto market grew — slashed its staffing levels by 30%.

“Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets,” Kraken Co-founder and CEO Jesse Powell said. “This resulted in significantly lower trading volumes and fewer client sign-ups.”

Binance, meanwhile, has faced troubles of its own recently. On Tuesday (June 10), a report by Bloomberg News said the company’s stablecoin was apparently undercollateralized by as much as $1 billion at various times throughout 2020 and 2021.

And on Monday (June 9), Forbes published an analysis that said the company was “bleeding assets,” with $12 billion lost in under two months, and a wave of withdrawals in December was higher than Zhao had let on.

Binance has disputed the analysis, telling PYMNTS the Forbes’ analysis was “poorly conceived,” and saying the publication’s numbers were “off by billions.”