Revolut Planning to Increase Crypto Staff by 20% During Bear Market

The British fintech firm Revolut plans to increase crypto-focused staff by 20% across the U.K., U.S., and Europe over the next six months. 

It is now advertising for 13 industry-related roles, including software engineers, crypto legal professionals, and financial compliance and crime prevention experts.

The Long-Term Crypto Play

According to Bloomberg, Revolut has already hired 43 crypto-focused staff members in 2022, increasing its crypto team’s headcount by ~200%. Across all teams, the firm has 230 open positions. 

The hiring push is intended to help Revolut expand its cryptocurrency offerings. It currently operates as an exchange platform for trading over 80 digital assets, and for earning crypto by rounding up spare change on daily purchases. It also lets users earn when learning about cryptocurrency on its platform. 

On Wednesday, the app added 22 new cryptos to its trading service – including APE coin.

“We see crypto as a long-term play and remain bullish on the crypto industry”, said Revolut’s crypto general manager Emil Urmanshin. He said that crypto currently accounts for 5-10% of Revolut’s global revenue.

The firm was launched back in 2015 and popularized as a low-cost and easy-to-use foreign exchange service. The activity in this area slowed during the Covid-19 outbreak due to travel restrictions and decreased spending. 

However, the firm’s crypto and stock businesses boomed in the meantime. UK customers buying cryptocurrency increased by 290% between July 2020 and July 2021, and by another 30% in July 2022. Transactions between each period increased by 800% and 50%, respectively. 

“Although there has been turmoil, interest in crypto assets has increased and we still have more customers trading crypto than during July 2021,” Urmanshin said.  

In July 2021, Revolut was valued at $33 billion, making it Britain’s most valuable Fintech firm. 

Building During the Bear

Revolut stands out from other industry players like Coinbase and OpenSea, which were forced to lay off 18% and 25% of staff respectively as the bear market took effect in June. Both firms confessed to having overhired in 2021 when trading activity was higher at both organizations. 

Binance, however – the world’s largest crypto exchange – played a conservative hand during the bull market in preparation for a slowdown. CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the firm was hiring for over 2000 positions in June.