Binance Announces Hiring While Coinbase, Crypto.com Lay Off Staff To Prepare For Crypto Winter

Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms, is "hiring right now" amid the multi-trillion market slump, which forced companies like Coinbase and Crypto.com to lay off staff to restructure and prepare for the crypto winter.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said at the Consensus 2022 conference last week that his company has the resources to expand hiring and scout for new acquisitions.

"We have a very healthy war chest; we in fact are expanding, hiring right now," CZ said. "If we are in a crypto winter, we will leverage that, we will use that to the max," the CEO added, noting that Binance is "kicking into high gear in terms of M&A activity."

Unlike other crypto companies, Binance is not inclined to spend much on promotions like Super Bowl ads, which is key in its ability to expand despite the bearish market condition.

"We currently have more than 2,000 roles open from engineers, product, marketing to business development," Yi He, Binance co-founder, said in an interview with Fortune. "The crypto space is still in its early stages, and bull markets tend to care more about price while bear markets have more value-conscious teams that continue to build the industry. We see this as a great time to bring on top talent," she added.

Coinbase, meanwhile, said Tuesday that it is cutting off a fifth of its entire workforce, or about 18 percent of full-time jobs. The cryptocurrency exchange platform has 5,000 full-time workers, which means it has to let go of around 1,100 people.

"I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team at Coinbase by about 18 percent. The broader market downturn means that we need to be more mindful of costs as we head into a potential recession," Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a Twitter thread.

Crypto.com, on the other hand, announced it will lay off 5 percent of its corporate workforce or around 260 people. CEO Kris Marszalek described this move as an act of "making difficult and necessary decisions to ensure continued and sustainable growth for the long term."

He also assured investors that the company will "continue to evaluate how to best optimize our resources to position ourselves as the strongest builders during the down cycle to become the biggest winners during the next bull run."