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What has happened in the crypto industry over the last few years
The cryptocurrency landscape has witnessed a considerable swell in its workforce over the past four years, notwithstanding numerous major setbacks within its market.
Insights from a study by cryptocurrency research company K33 reveal a close to 160% increase in the number of employees involved in crypto projects since 2019.
Crypto Industry’s Explosive Employee Growth
In their research paper, called “The Emerging Crypto Industry,” K33 approximated the overall number of individuals working within crypto in 2023 to be nearly 190,000. This is a significant surge from the estimated 73,000 crypto workers in 2019.
An interesting find from the study indicated the greatest number of employees in the crypto industry in 2021, with more than 211,000 professionals. This growth coincided with Bitcoin hitting a record-breaking price of $68,000 in November 2021.
Workforce Shrinkage and Bitcoin’s Value Dynamics
Although the number of crypto employees has shrunk by roughly 11% since 2021, it still shows a substantial increase from four years ago. Interestingly, this trend parallels Bitcoin's price progression, which shot up over 300% from its yearly average of around $7,200 in 2019, based on CoinGecko's stats.
Large industry corporations corroborate K33's findings, while others seem to lag behind. Cryptocurrency heavyweight Kraken contributed to the employee boom by boosting its global headcount by over 150% since 2019, according to Chief People Officer Pranesh Anthapur.
Recruitment and Retention in the Crypto Sphere
Hardware wallet giant Trezor also amplified their employee count by 120% since 2019, CEO Matej Zak shared. Zak emphasized on enhancing talent cultivation and retention, even in bear markets, rather than cyclic hiring and firing driven by "just-in-time market hype."
However, the crypto industry also faced multiple layoff waves in the last year, including at Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, Dapper Labs, and Kraken. Online reports say that Binance purportedly terminated more than 1,000 jobs recently after announcing a 20% staff reduction in May.
A More Conservative Approach to Hiring
On the contrary, some crypto giants have kept a lean structure, with less than 100 employees. Tether, the creator of the largest stablecoin and most traded cryptocurrency globally, USDT, only employs about 60 people, a spokesperson disclosed.
"We have consistently adopted a conservative stance towards hiring, ensuring the well-being and longevity of our employees' careers, which reflects in our history of not making staff cuts in adverse market conditions," the spokesperson stated further.
