India’s crypto players bullish on hiring; say crash is just a phase

• The global crypto marketcap plunged from $1.7 trillion from the start of May to $929 billion, as of June 24, 2022, as per the data by CoinMarketCap.
• Crypto firms are now taking cautious steps to survive the ongoing crypto market crash.
• Ihe Indian crypto industry is likely to hire more to grow in the current year, Mudita Chauhan of CoinDCX told Business Insider.

For the last two months, cryptocurrencies did not just fall, they crashed. The market lost tens of billions within a matter of weeks as the global crypto market cap plunged from $1.7 trillion in the beginning of May to $929 billion as of June 24.

In a market which depended heavily on investor interest with no physical assets, it led to quick and fast retrenchments. Crypto exchanges Coinbase laid off at least 1,100 employees last month. However, its effect on the Indian hub was much less than the global average.

“We made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team which affected 18% of Coinbase's global workforce. Although this did impact our India hub, the cuts were much lower than the global average. Approximately ~ 8% of our India team was affected,” said Durgesh Kaushik, senior director at Coinbase, in a tweet.

Other crypto players like BlockFi, Crypto.com, Gemini and Rain Financial also announced layoffs and paused all their hirings. According to media reports, the crypto sector was the worst in May - it had more job losses this month than the previous four months combined.

And things have been bad since the beginning of the year. After the Government of India announced a tax of 30% on virtual digital assets, Indian crypto trading dropped 40%, as per a report by Credit Rating for Exchanges, Blockchains and Coin Offerings (CREBACO).

Players however believe that taxes and crashes don’t stop this sector which is known for its risk-taking – with investors who like to bet against the odds. In fact, almost every second year has a large crash and then a spike - and the sector is used to the volatility.

A few experts call it just a phase and this too shall pass.

“Firms are trying to survive the crypto winter and recession and laying off is a sign that a company is confident about what it is doing. Any marketing or advertising in India is not going to be lucrative as customers are not going to invest right now,” said Sidharth Sogani, founder and CEO of CREBACO.

Three top crypto firms say – they will continue to hire

While there have been layoffs, a few of them are hiring as well. Binance CEO Changpen Zhao said at a recent event that the company is planning to expand its footprint and will continue to hire.

Zhao further explained that his company hasn’t incurred any big hefty losses as it’s not involved in promotional activities.

According to Mudita Chauhan, head of human resources at CoinDCX, the Indian crypto industry's hiring pace is likely to grow for the current year. The Web 3.0 industry, like any other sector, requires a variety of roles to build the web3 ecosystem and survive the test.

Indian crypto players WazirX and CoinDCX have similar plans too.

Sricharan C, head of human resources at WazirX told Business Insider India that the company is on a hiring spree. It has a workforce of over 250 professionals in over 70 cities.

“We are looking to optimize operations with the current talent base this year. We are doing this by deploying skill development programs across the organization. We aren't looking at trimming the size of our employees. Instead, we are actively hiring as per business need for strategic roles through internal referral programmes and external job listings,” he said.

CoinDCX too is looking forward to expanding its workforce to 1,000 people, and is bullish on hiring.

“We plan to build for scale and therefore, invest in functions that will strengthen our core. We are on the lookout for more such crypto enthusiasts to join our team and grow along with CoinDCX. We aim to continue being the most compliant crypto platform, and we’ll continue investing in resources for that,” Chauhan told Business Insider India.

SEE ALSO:
Crypto platform Voyager Digital cuts daily withdrawal limit to $10,000 after revealing $660 million exposure to struggling crypto hedge fund
28% GST on crypto transactions? India is reportedly mulling another tax levy next week