Bitpanda latest crypto firm to slash jobs

Bitpanda, the Austria-based crypto trading platform, is axing hundreds of jobs, amid a “crypto winter” of plummeting asset prices and admitting it had made a “mistake” hiring too quickly.

The fintech unicorn is reducing its headcount from between 1,000 to 1,100 to 730, as it looks to cut costs amidst an uncertain market.

For example, Bitcoin has fallen around 70 per cent from a peak in November last year.

According to one tech expert, Gergely Orosz, 10 per cent of staff across tech and engineering are being axed at Bitpanda.

It follows other recent job cuts across the sector. 

Coinbase, the listed cryptocurrency exchange recently announced job cuts affecting 18 per cent of its global workforce, while Gemini and BlockFi have also made cuts.

In a letter to staff posted on its website, Bitpanda said:  “Over the past few months, the market sentiment has dramatically changed, fuelled by geopolitical tensions, rising inflation and concerns about the imminence of a recession. 

“There’s lots of uncertainty in the financial markets right now and, while we do know that the industry is cyclical, nobody knows when the market sentiment will change.

“We’ve seen crypto winters before and we’ve always got out of them stronger due to our focus on being a financially healthy company, having a conservative approach and aiming at all times to be self-funded. 

“This is also true now, and that implies that cost management is essential. We need to make fundamental changes in how we operate and sharpen our focus by getting back to the basics, prioritising safety and compliance, user experience, education and community, while deprioritizing everything else. 

“Besides this, as a hypergrowth company, we were experiencing growing pains. In keeping up with the industry, our team’s growth rate has been too high. 

"We were facing challenges in setting up the right internal processes and infrastructure to successfully onboard new joiners, put them in the right place to win and enable them to deliver impact. 

“We reached a point where more people joining didn’t make us more effective, but created coordination overheads instead, particularly in this new market reality. Looking back now, we realise that our hiring speed was not sustainable. That was a mistake."

Bitpanda was valued at $4.1bn in August last year when it raised $263m.

Founded in 2014, Bitpanda, which hit unicorn status last year, started life offering access to crypto assets.

Last year Bitpanda entered the share trading space, taking on the likes of Freetrade,Revolut and Stake, with the launch of fractionalised stocks and ETFs called Bitpanda Stocks.