US crypto exchange Kraken has laid off staff, making it the third major company in the space to do so this week—even as bitcoin prices hit record highs on Tuesday.
The San Francisco-based exchange also has Arjun Sethi joining as CEO alongside David Ripley. Sethi is the co-founder and chairman of Tribal Capital, and was previously a member of the executive team at web pioneer Yahoo. Alongside the appointment, Kraken also framed the layoff as a starting point for the Crypto Foundation.
“To continue to work our way forward and keep Kraken in contention to be the largest crypto platform in the world, we need to be leaner and faster,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Kraken did not provide further details on the reduced staff size and did not comment further to Decrypt beyond referring to the published statement. New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaacs tweeted (aka X) that Kraken had cut 15% of its workforce, citing two people at the company.
Ethereum giant Consensus, the software giant, announced on Tuesday that it is laying off 20 percent of its global workforce, or 163 employees. Later that day, decentralized exchange dYdX CEO Antonio Giuliano said the company had cut 35% of its workforce, but did not say how many people were affected by the move.
Editor's Note: This is breaking news and will be updated with more details.
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