BlockFi will cut about 20 per cent of its staff strength — about 170 people. The company blamed the “dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions worldwide” as reason for the cuts. Elsewhere, crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek Tweeted that the company would reduce its workforce by about 5 per cent—260 people.
The crypto platforms BlockFi and Crypto.com aren’t the first ones to lay off employees. At the beginning of June, Gemini fired off 10 per cent of its workers, while Coinbase cancelled employment offers for about 300 potential hires. Only Binance is aggressively hiring, defying the trend. The employment losses are only one of the numerous indicators that the cryptocurrency business is in trouble. As investors draw back on risky assets, such as cryptocurrency, exchanges are seeing reduced trade volumes, less activity, and, as a result, lower profitability.
There has been nearly six months of adverse price activity since the November highs of 2021. In what some have nicknamed a “crypto winter,” the overall market value of crypto has dropped by about 66 per cent.
In essence, “crypto winter” describes the prolonged crypto crash of 2018-20, which lasted well into 2020. The US Federal Reserve continues to pull back on its pandemic-related economic stimulus measures. Authorities around the world are looking at ways to control this sprawling industry.
In a research released, Morgan Stanley has stated that Ether (ETH) is underperforming Bitcoin (BTC), much as it did during the crypto market collapse in 2018. According to the research, crypto prices are being harmed by the withdrawal of US dollar liquidity from markets and forecasts of increasing Federal Reserve (Fed) interest rates.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has dropped about 75 per cent from its November peak. Analysts noted that this time it is the large institutional investors who are driving sales. The crypto-equivalent of quantitative tightening has continued, fuelling BTC’s slide to below $28,000.
Crypto Prices
The price of Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market fell by 7.11 per cent in the last 24 hours, and it was trading at $21957.58 at 5:00 pm IST.
In the last 24 hours, Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $1,173.96, down by 2.03 per cent, while Binance Coin (BNB) was down by 0.49 per cent during the same time period, and it was trading at $220.13. Solana (SOL) was up by 8.85 per cent to $29.08, while Cardano (ADA) was up by 9.52 per cent to $0.493.
Meme Coins
Dogecoin was trading at $0.05567 at 5:00 pm IST, down by 2.50 per cent on Coinmarketcap.com. Its rival, Shiba Inu, was up by 4.82 per cent, and it was trading at $0.000008071. Samoyedcoin was down by 0.77 per cent, and it was trading at $0.004248, while Dogelon Mars was up by 0.05 per cent, and it was trading at $0.0000002734.
Overall Scenario
Doge Rise Up, DOGERISEUP was the biggest gainer, gaining 172.72 per cent. It was trading at $0.0000000007643 at 5:00 pm IST, according to Coinmarketcap. In contrast, Solily Protocol LILY witnessed the maximum loss and fell by 98.84 per cent. It was trading at $0.0007484.
