Ioannis Giannaros, the CEO of Crypto payments company Wyre, has allegedly told his employees via email that he is liquidating the company and plans to terminate services this month, according to a report by Axios.
Citing two unnamed employees as sources, alongside a recent layoff posted on LinkedIn, the report notes that Giannaros downplayed allegations of a shutdown in a follow-up email, saying: "We’re still operating but will be scaling back to plan our next steps."
Giannaros declined to comment on the claims by his alleged former employees, one of whom said the company hasn’t “yet” offered a severance package.
Decrypt has reached out to Wyre for comment and will update this article when we hear back.
Wyre, which turns 10 this year, had a $1.5 billion price tag at its height—at least, that was the price agreed for its acquisition by one-click checkout provider Bolt last April, before the deal was scrapped in September.
The two companies agreed to remain partners and entered “a commercial agreement [...] to implement Wyre’s one-click solution for the Bolt customer platform.”
Crypto winter layoffs
The industry is uneasy at the prospect of further layoffs amid the ongoing crypto winter. Since the collapse of Terra last May plunged the industry into a sustained bear market, many top firms have been making big staff cuts.
Recently, the ripple effects from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX resulted in layoffs at Bybit, Swytfx, and Koinly, while exchanges Coinbase and Crypto.com have done multiple rounds of layoffs since summer.