Polygon Labs axed 20% of its workforce after the company earlier said that it would increase headcount by 40%.
Ethereum scaling platform Polygon Labs has shed about 100 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, the company announced on Tuesday. The job cuts come at a time when the crypto industry is suffering from the aftermath of crypto exchange FTX implosion and the ensuing downturn.
“Earlier this year, we consolidated multiple business units under Polygon Labs. As part of this process, we’re sharing the difficult news that we’ve reduced our team by 20% impacting multiple teams and about 100 positions,” the company said in a release.
The cuts will affect employees in the US, Canada and India, where the majority of Polygon’s workforce is located.
The blog post said the layoffs are the company’s next phase of consolidation after Polygon Labs built several business units, and not the result of the crypto winter, which has downsized several companies in recent months.
While there was no talk of a job placement program, affected employees will receive three months’ severance pay, regardless of their previous role. According to the Post, Polygon is financially secure with about $250 million and $1.9 billion in its treasury. Matic is the multilateral network’s native token, used to pay transaction fees and to manage and secure the network.
Polygon Labs Joins Crypto Layoffs Saga
Polygon Labs is the latest crypto organization to lay off employees since the bear market began last year. Some of the most prominent names doing this are Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com, Blockchain.com, etc.
Naiwal, Jaynti Kanani, and Anurang Arjun created the Polygon blockchain to run as an Ethereum sidechain after noticing congestion issues on Ethereum as collectors of CryptoKittie’s NFT collectibles flooded the network with transactions, causing outages and high gas fees. Sidechains run parallel to the mainchain to increase its transaction processing speed and efficiency.
The trio won several notable successes, establishing Polygon as the NFT platform for several companies including Starbucks, Reddit, and Adidas. Luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana partnered with Polygon marketplace UNXD last year to give DGFamily Box NFT owners access to other D&G products.
