Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said on Wednesday, Jan. 11, that the crypto firm would be expanding its workforce this year. It could be counterintuitive since other crypto businesses have been laying off large numbers of employees due to the ongoing bear market.

Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and according to Zhao, it boosted its workforce by nearly 8,000 workers in 2022.

Binance
(Photo : ERIC PIERMONT/AFP via Getty Images)
Blockchain and cryptocurrency Binance founder and CEO Chinese-born Canadian Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, poses during an interview at the technology startups and innovation fair in Paris on May 16, 2022.

Potential Employment Growth Within Binance

In a report by CNBC, CEO Zhao announced intentions to grow the company's workforce by 15-30% within this year. He stated it during the Crypto Finance Conference (CFC) in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

While admitting that Binance is not extremely efficient, Zhao said the business has to become "well-organized" before the next cryptocurrency bull run.

"We will continue to build, and hopefully, we will ramp up again before the next bull market," he stated.

See Also: Binance to Help Regulate Crypto with Chamber of Digital Commerce-Is It Following FTX's Footsteps?

Layoffs and Hiring Freezes

After key digital currencies like bitcoin and ether saw their values plummet in 2022, the crypto sector lost about $1.4 trillion, forcing competing exchanges to lay off substantial numbers of employees.

Kraken said in November that it would be cutting off 30% of its team. 

Huobi and Coinbase both indicated in 2018 that they would be laying off 20% of their employees. But, there had been a total of two rounds of layoffs at Coinbase in the previous 12 months.

Coinbase announced on Tuesday, Jan. 10, that it would be laying off another 20% of its staff or about 950 individuals. As expected, it is part of the firm's cost-cutting measure in the face of the ongoing bear market in the industry.

Is BNB Manipulated by Binance? Crypto Whale Says 'Likely 99%'
(Photo : Image from Unsplash Website)
Is BNB Manipulated by Binance? Crypto Whale Says 'Likely 99%'

Continued Pressure in the Crypto Sector

Major project failures, cash flow problems, bankruptcies, and the publicized demise of the crypto exchange FTX all rocked the sector last year. Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX's founder and ex-CEO, is facing eight felony charges in the US, several of which include fraud.

Binance played a crucial part in the downfall of FTX

When FTX's non-US operations ran into liquidity problems in November 2022, Binance offered to acquire them, only to subsequently withdraw. And when Zhao announced that his business would sell its FTT tokens, it accelerated the devaluation of that digital currency and escalated FTX's negative slide.

When asked by CNBC about the effects of the FTX crash on the crypto sector during the margins of the CFC St. Moritz conference, Binance's CEO claimed that the real impact is not that high. He added that FTX is not a significant player, but they make a lot of noise."

Zhao acknowledges that there is undoubtedly damage with what happened, but he believes the industry will be fine. 

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Trisha Andrada

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