Amid job slashes from cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase, conglomerates like Amazon, and a handful of crypto businesses folding up as a result of FTX collapse, the crypto price clash, and the current macroeconomic realities, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced plans to increase its workforce by 15% to 30%.
Binance’s CEO Zhao Changpeng announced on Wednesday that the company will be going on a hiring spree this year. In 2022, Binance increased its headcount by almost 5,000 people, according to its CEO. The company is looking at further increasing its workforce, Binance’s CEO said while speaking at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The latest announcement follows Coinbase’s announcement that it plans to cut off its workforce by 20 percent as a strategy for survival amid the current realities for crypto businesses. Last year, the crypto market saw about $1.4 trillion wiped off and major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin saw their value plummet.
FTX’s recent collapse also affected the crypto space negatively. Prior to its crash, Binance had announced plans to acquire FTX. According to Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, the company decided to acquire FTX after its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried asked Binance for help. “To protect users, we signed a non-binding LOI, intending to fully acquire FTX and help cover the liquidity crunch. We will be conducting a full DD in the coming days,” Changpeng Zhao shared in a tweet. Less than 24 hours later, Binance rescinded its decision. It wrote in its statement that “As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX.com. In the beginning, our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help. Every time a major player in an industry fails, retail consumers will suffer. We have seen over the last several years that the crypto ecosystem is becoming more resilient and we believe in time that outliers that misuse user funds will be weeded out by the free market. As regulatory frameworks are developed and as the industry continues to evolve toward greater decentralization, the ecosystem will grow stronger.”
While speaking, Zhao Changpeng noted that Binance “We will continue to build and hopefully we will ramp up again before the next bull market.” Also responding to a question about how FTX’s collapse has affected the crypto industry, he said that “actual damage is not that high” adding that FTX “is not a big player, they just make a lot of noise. There’s definitely damage but the industry will be fine.”
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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