Currency USD (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15-25% by 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported The Wall Street Journal.
With a significant portion of companies across the industry laying off staff to ease their financial woes, Circle has gone against the grain to hire more people.
41% of all layoffs in 2023 came from the cryptocurrency industry. The main cryptocurrency firms that made significant staff cuts they include Polygon, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Huobi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, Genesis, and Wyre.
A major factor behind crypto firms shrinking the workforce was the prolonged crypto winter and various crypto implosions that wiped billions off the balance sheets of numerous partner firms. However, the large-scale layoffs from the crypto industry were not isolated. About 48,000 people were laid off from just four companies in January: Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce.
The decision to increase his workforce for Circle comes just months after canceling his public debut. In December 2022, Circle mutually terminated their plans to go public with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Concord Acquisition. The deal was announced in July 2021 with a preliminary valuation of $4.5 billion and then changed in February 2022 when Circle's valuation skyrocketed to $9 billion.
Circle's chief financial officer, Jeremy Fox-Geen, said they still intend to go public, but are waiting for better market conditions. He added that the crypto industry needs more distance from the Terra and FTX implosions for public market investors to reassess the future of digital asset business.
Related: Crypto Companies Cut Nearly 3,000 Jobs In January Despite Bitcoin Rise
As of the end of 2022, the stablecoin issuer had approximately 900 employees, with plans to increase the headcount to between 135 and 225 in 2023. However, the number of employees is growing more slowly than in 2022, when the headcount doubled with you grow from 2021.
USDC issued by Circle is currently the second largest stablecoin behind Tether (USDT), with a market capitalization of $42 billion.
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