Mercado Bitcoin Let Goes 15% Of Staff Due To Economic Woes

One of the biggest crypto exchanges in Brazil, Mercado Bitcoin, recently announced a new series of layoffs, as fintech startups all over the world are dealing with the impacts of the worsening economic situation globally.

The crypto exchange said that the economic woes were also taking their toll on innovation-based companies.

On September 1st, Mercado Bitcoin let go off 15% of its staff, which makes it the second round of layoffs that the company has carried out in the last three months.

More layoffs

The recent downturn seen in the traditional financial markets, as well as crypto markets, has affected crypto companies in Latin America as well as other parts of the world.

Based in Brazil, Mercado Bitcoin has also been facing the same challenges, which has driven the crypto exchange to announce multiple layoffs to keep up with the global economic conditions.

Local media reports disclosed that the crypto exchange had laid off 15% of its workforce at the beginning of this month.

This is part of the measures taken by its holding company, 2TM, in order to streamline its operations.

The government

The company also issued a statement in which it criticized the government of Brazil for not focusing on a crypto bill in development and shifting its attention toward the upcoming general elections.

Mercado Bitcoin said that they were still facing economic challenges and they also had to deal with an unfair and competitive environment.

This is because there is no legal framework that exists in Brazil for overseeing crypto assets and it said that those who follow the law are penalized against firms that do not follow the local rules.

The Brazilian SEC has also expressed its displeasure with the current regulatory framework in Brazil for cryptocurrencies and has proposed changes that need to be made.

Plenty of layoffs

As mentioned earlier, this is the second time that Mercado Bitcoin has laid off its staff within a span of three months.

The first time it laid off 90 employees back in June in order to continue with its operations. The company had said at that time that this was not just about reducing operating expenses.

Similar to the first layoffs, the crypto exchange will offer benefit packages to ex-employees in order to help them look for new jobs and they will also receive continued medical insurance.

It should also be noted that other crypto exchanges in Latam have also made similar moves in order to cut down their expenses.

Based in Mexico, Bitso also laid off its staff, as did Buenbit, which is based in Argentina. They both reduced their workforce in order to survive the crypto winter.

Last year in July, Mercado Bitcoin earned unicorn status when it was able to obtain funds worth $200 million from SoftBank.

This was one of the biggest funding rounds to happen in Latin America. The exchange had also announced a Series B funding round in December, which had seen it add $50 million to its investments.