MATIC Drops 6% as Polygon Labs Slashes Headcount by 20%

By Liam J. Kelly

Polygon Labs, the group of companies behind the eponymously-named blockchain network, announced it would be cutting its headcount by 20%, per a blog post.

The 100 employees that have been laid off will receive three months of severance pay.

"Earlier this year, we consolidated multiple business units under Polygon Labs. As part of this process,  we’re sharing the difficult news that we’ve reduced our team by 20% impacting multiple teams and about 100 positions," read the post.

Polygon is a proof-of-stake (PoS) crypto network, hosting a variety of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFTs) projects.

The network's native MATIC token has dropped 6% over the past 24 hours, falling to around $1.40. The token is down over 50% from its all-time high of $2.92, set in December 2021.

Polygon Labs vice president of communications and community Kurt Patat told Decrypt that "teams across Polygon Labs were impacted, but operations and marketing were impacted the most," adding that the project still plans "to continue operating at an extremely high level."

Polygon joins firms tightening up

Layoffs have continued to spill over into 2023 as the industry continues to cope with a brutal crypto winter and wave of bankruptcies.

According to data collected by CoinGecko, January 2023 was the second-worst month for layoffs in crypto. Crypto exchanges made up roughly 84% of that, with researchers citing lower trading volumes and declining revenues as key reasons. Coinbase, Crypto.com, Huobi, and many others are just a few of the big-name platforms to have let staff go last month.

It's not just exchanges that are reeling either.

On Valentine's day this year, the Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden let go of 22 employees.

“This week, we will focus our energy on helping the people who are transitioning from Magic Eden,” said the project's co-founder and CEO Jack Lu. “Next week, we will regroup, refocus, and move forward.”

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