Kraken lays off staff, announces new co-CEO

Kraken announced layoffs Wednesday as the crypto exchange looks to shift its organizational structuring. 

It wasn’t immediately clear how many roles were impacted, and a Kraken spokesperson declined to comment.

New York Times reporter Mike Isaac said 15% of roles were impacted, citing sources. 

“As we’ve grown north of $1 billion in net revenue as a remote organization worldwide, we fell into the trap of building organizational layers. We put managers in charge of the successes or failures of the groups they controlled, and we predicated success based on siloed P&Ls,” a blog post said.

“At its best, this structure can provide clear paths for ‘managers’ whereby they can move from smaller, less complex areas of focus to progressively larger and more complex ones. So, ‘managers’ are incentivized to do the wrong thing.”

The exchange said that it needed to get “leaner” as it moves forward, echoing a sentiment heard from Consensys CEO Joe Lubin when he announced that his firm laid off 20% of its staff on Tuesday.

Read more: dYdX, Consensys layoffs shake up the space

“Looking ahead, I see a next generation economy not dominated by large monolithic companies; instead, smaller, agile, AI-supercharged companies with Web3-based coordination tools will operate more efficiently. To stay competitive in this fast-growing space, we need to reshape ourselves and be more agile, more effective and even higher-performing,” Lubin said.

Additionally, Kraken appointed Arjun Sethi as co-CEO of the firm, who will join Dave Ripley in helming the exchange. Sethi previously served on Kraken’s board. 

Perp exchange dYdX also announced layoffs on Tuesday, announcing a reduction of 35%. According to its website, dYdX employed roughly 50 employees.

Blockworks reported last week that Helium’s parent firm laid off 40% of its staff back in August and Matter Labs told Blockworks that it let go of 16% of its staff back in September. 

The news comes after Kraken announced it was launching its own layer-2 called Ink, somewhat following in the footsteps of a competitor. Coinbase launched its own layer-2, Base, last year. Unlike Base, Ink plans to bring new users to DeFi.

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