The major cryptocurrency exchange based in South Korea, Bithumb, is in the latest news on our DC Forecasts crypto news site for reportedly cutting up to 50% of its workforce, according to new reports from CoinDesk Korea published on March 18th.
The dominant exchange known for Bitcoin and altcoin trading has confirmed that it will reduce its staff from 310 (a number that was present at the beginning of this month) to around 150, cutting more than 50% of the staff.
According to the report by an unnamed official within the company, there is a voluntary redundancy plan and training support to employees:
“Voluntary retirement is part of our support program for former employees and is intended to provide assistance and training for job placement. Apart from that, [Bithumb’s] trading volume has decreased compared to the previous year, [so] we are trying to provide internal measures. We will continue to add necessary personnel for various new businesses.”
Bithumb still hasn’t responded to the requests for comment.
However, many speculate that this move is right because of the crypto winter which led to a lot of minuses all over the market. Still, what’s interesting is that Bithumb has been preceded by many other firms in the sector – such as the mining giant Bitmain, the blockchain software company ConsenSys, the decentralized social network named Steemit as well as the similar crypto exchanges Coinsquare and Huobi – all of the companies which have decided to make significant cuts in the recent months.
According to data from CoinMarketCap (CMC), Bithumb has seen more than $1.3 billion in trades over the past 24 hours. The exchange, however, was removed from the CMC global exchange rankings in January 2018 mostly because of the concerns that the site had over the reportedly “extreme divergence in prices from the rest of the world” and its fellow exchanges in South Korea.
Currently, everyone is waiting for an official confirmation about the layoff from Bithumb. The respected exchange hasn’t confirmed anything yet but will probably do that over the next couple of days.
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