Market Extra: BlockFi to lay off 20% of employees, the latest crypto company scaling back headcount

Crypto lending platform BlockFi is slashing about 20% of its head count, as the fast-changing macroeconomic environment weighs on the company’s growth rate.

BlockFi has about 850 employees, up from 150 at the end of 2020, Zac Prince, the company’s chief executive tweeted Monday.

The crypto lender made the decision as bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-14.08%
is down 65% from its all-time high in November, while other smaller coins fell even more.

BlockFi has been managing its costs through cutting marketing expenses, eliminating “noncritical” vendors, reducing executive compensation and scaling down its team size, Prince tweeted.

Early this month, crypto exchange Coinbase
COIN,
-9.96%
said it would extend its hiring freeze and rescinded some accepted offers. Gemini said it would lay off 10% of its employee.

Read: ‘I thought it was a sick joke’: They gave up other job offers to work for Coinbase, and are now unemployed

Weakness in crypto markets Monday came as lending platform Celsius announced it was pausing all withdrawals and transfers amid “extreme market conditions,” as its CEL digital token plunged 50%. Others were rattled after cryptocurrency exchange Binance tweeted that it had “temporarily paused #Bitcoin withdrawals on the $BTC network,” due to a “stuck on-chain transaction.”

See: Bitcoin tumbles through $24,000 in crypto crash. This chart shows how much worse a selloff could get.