Middle East Crypto Exchange, BitOasis, Cuts 5% Of Its Staff Citing Recession and Market Turmoil

As the bear market spreads, more cryptocurrency exchanges are joining the wave of mass layoffs, even though some analysts suggest that the bottom might be in.

On June 19, BitOasis, a cryptocurrency exchange located in the United Arab Emirates, which has been serving the Middle East since 2015, announced the layoff of 5% of its workers in light of a “recession and market turmoil.”

According to a Reuters report, Ola Doudin, CEO and co-founder of BitOasis, said that the exchange announced the layoffs at three offices run by the company in Dubai and Jordan.

He further indicated that the company was “growing too fast” and was “too comfortable” when the crypto market was booming. The team did not anticipate a drop of such magnitude as the one happening now, which is worrying most exchanges.

On the other hand, a company spokesperson said that the nine laid-off workers represent almost 5% of the company’s workforce, which could be very small compared to other exchanges.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges Keep Shorting Their Staff

Although some exchanges like Binance or Kraken reported to be hiring new workers currently, the number of exchanges that are cutting their staff is much higher.

Today, CryptoPotato reported the layoff of a significant part of the personnel working at Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange located in Singapore. This was confirmed by one of its spokespersons in an interview. However, the exact number of workers affected by the decision was not revealed.

According to Colin Wu’s sources, the layoff figures could be as high as 20% to 50% of its staff of around 2000 workers.

According to sources, the proportion of layoffs is expected to be 20% to 30%, with some partial layoffs as high as 50%. Bybit has grown from hundreds to over 2000 in 2 years.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 20, 2022

If true, this could be the largest layoff spree in the entire crypto industry so far.

Other Companies Could absorb fired Workers.

As reported by CryptoPotato, it’s not all bad news for the laid-off workers of cryptocurrency exchanges, as recently, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced its interest in hiring the laid-off workers in order to expand its workforce and offer better services to its members.

In addition, it should be noted that the crypto industry is still growing and that even if the crypto market is in full bearish mode, once the crypto winter is over, hirings by large companies will start to come back —if history repeats itself. So this might not be the end for workers in the crypto world.