One year ago, things were different for the cryptocurrency market. It was sailing high at $20,000. Just two trading exchanges paved the future of the cryptocurrency. This also gave hopes to start-ups and even big technical and traditional firms for the promise of new opportunities in the fast-growing cryptocurrency industry.
The cruise was sailing fine, trading around $3,300 while other cryptocurrencies had reversed their courses, taking a setback on the customer confidence. To top it all, earlier this month, the popular blockchain services company Consensus said it is cutting 13% of its staff. On similar lines, another company Steemit announced it would be laying off 70% of its workforce.
The job portals too witnessed a stark change too. While, in 2017, they were flooded with cryptocurrency-related job posts from 2017, followed by a slump in 2018. The job postings were on the rise until the beginning of 2018 when it slumped dramatically. It found that most of the jobseekers were interested in joining blockchain companies, which had a drop off in 2018. Right now, only 20% of the seekers still hold an interest in the industry.
Speaking to a popular news channel, Michael Moro of Genesis Global Trading said, “Many firms across the digital currency landscape hired aggressively throughout 2017 and early 2018 as the market rose, and it makes a ton of sense as to why firms are now having to downsize. It means that companies are making rational decisions, and not simply assuming that prices will recover in 2019.”
Having said that, cryptocurrency hedge funds are also facing the heat. Experts observe that most of the funds that are closing had very little capital and posted poor performance this year. Despite the downturn in cryptocurrency prices, experts believe that there would still be new additions to the same. Larger chains, however, seem to be unaffected by the downturn. Some, in fact, see it as an opportunity; Institutional digital currency trading firm Genesis Global has taken the opportunity to expand too.