10 ms·

Crypto firm Bitpanda lays off around 20% of its people

166 points by brunojppb 4y ago

jeffwask 4y ago
Is it irony when you name yourself after an endangered species and then your product becomes an endangered species?
- themitigating 4y ago
  Giant pandas no longer endangered but still vulnerable, says China https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472
chollida1 4y ago
Google, amazon, yahoo and Microsoft all benefited greatly from the early 2000 tech crash in that they had a lot of cash and were able to hire alot of really good tech talent that was suddenly out of a job. Looks like FTX and Binance are about to leave their competition in the dust in this crypto winter. Coinbase seems to have thrown in the towel for now. I would have thought they would see this as an opportunity but their fiscal situation must be alot worse than they are letting on. Which is strange because I would have thought they were better capitalized that they are letting on. We're watching as closely as we can to see if they have alot of bad loans outstanding to failing firms. With Voyager about to go under, Celsius just hiring a firm to guide them through bankruptcy and several other minor firms already going under there will be no shortage of tech talent available to well run firms. When we come out of this downturn in a year or two FTX and Binance are going to be even larger giants than they are now. With no real government oversite over those firms to limit their growth, the next crypto crash could be because one of those two gets into trouble. Another dark horse candidate is Goldman Sachs, they are well capitalized. Look for them to start to buy up distressed crypto assets and go into the next bull market in(probably 2024) as a big crypto player for institutional clients, and possibly for retail under their Marcus brand.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  Binance is in all sorts of legal trouble and FTX has made investments in all sorts of sketchy things. Odds are quite high that either or both blow up before this is over.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > yahoo and Microsoft Those two stagnated (at best) in the aughts. Google was taking Yahoo's lunch, and Microsoft had no web vision and was tied up in antitrust headaches.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    Yeah and Ballmer screaming every time Google poached someone.
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    > Google was taking Yahoo's lunch For nearly half the aughts they weren’t even really competitors in the same market. It wasn’t until the latter half of the decade that Yahoo! even tried to be a search company competing with Google and Yahoo! had a definitive lead ahead of Google in mail, finance, etc for virtually all of the decade.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  FTX and Binanace will win because they actually invested in infra and efficiency when building out their products during the good times. They'll reap outsized benefits during the downturn.
- hrgiger 4y ago
  I skipped binance interview in the past when there was no crisis, their assignment: Design and code a Content Management System (CMS) for Binance. The CMS would used to post articles for the public. The current Binance site supports up to 17 different languages. Each article would have some translations but not all articles have all of the 17 translations. Design and code a RESTful API for the CMS. The user of the CMS would need to input the different translations for the same article. Design a user interface to facilitate this. We would only be looking at the functionalities of the user interface, so do not spend too much time on the design aspects. Derive your own data model as deem fit. The preferred language for backend is Java and frontend is JavaScript though you are free to choose any other languages as well as frameworks. Submit the code as a GitHub repository and make sure that the GitHub repository is public. Remember to add a README file for instructions on how to run the application and explanations (if any).
colesantiago 4y ago
Good. There needs to be more of these layoffs in the crypto casino sector. Hopefully in the next coming years, all crypto firms should go bankrupt and disappear. These exchanges and crypto companies need to stop encouraging customers to buy and gamble their savings and college funds into the crypto pyramid scheme. This needs to end.
- melenaboija 4y ago
  > “…crypto casino sector” I would not call it casino. Casinos go through regulated scrutiny to test the games probabilities are accurate so you play against math, crypto is a an unregulated market so you (probably) play against or benefit of market inefficiencies.
  - tpmx 4y ago
    > Casinos go through regulated scrutiny to test the games probabilities are accurate so you play against math That's only for physical games/machines, right?
    - melenaboija 4y ago
      I had in mind physical casinos so I would say yes but testing also depends on each country regulations. If I recall properly (I worked in the testing industry long time ago and with slot machines) the problem with online games for my country at that time was that there was some confusion on which regulation to apply for them as games where not played where they were hosted.
    - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
      no
  - bluelightning2k 4y ago
    At the end of a casino the chips can always be redeemed. There is very little liquidity in crypto. And when one of the whales breaks rank and heads for the exit every other holder will be sitting on chips with some nominal value but absolutely no buyers.
tyrfing 4y ago
550 million raised, last round series C in Aug '21.
- nikanj 4y ago
  I wonder how much of that was put into BTC. Might only be worth $150 million now
  - gitfan86 4y ago
    The smart money doesn't hold any crypto and instead take advantage of the lack of regulations to arbitrage and front run traders and speculators.
rvz 4y ago
This goes in line with the same rule that 90% of these startups like this one will fail. As for crypto projects, the same is true, that 90% of them will also fail and like the survivors of the dotcom crash, only a few of them will also survive. So the anti-crypto and pro-crypto maximalists are going to be both disappointed.
- boardwaalk 4y ago
  A single data point doesn’t give you any information about how much of the industry will fail. “Goes in line” —- yeah, because absolutely anything would fit. “This is good for bitcoin”
  - rvz 4y ago
    That is assuming you have been paying attention to the recent crypto crash, which is affecting the majority of crypto-related companies and projects from DAOs to exchanges. So it is hardly a single data point. > “This is good for bitcoin” And who said that?
mathverse 4y ago
Bitpanda was hiring like crazy before the crypto burst. They were scaling for infinite growth i guess because laying off 20% workforce sounds crazy.
timcavel 4y ago
franze 4y ago
I wonder if they will survive. They hired like crazy here in Vienna. Lots of good people which started to work there are now 2 years later at other companies. I tried to sign up for their service 2 times. Both time it did not work. One time even after the success message after the video verification. Still getting Newsletters which seems to get more and more irregular. Well, we will see. Maybe cutting down will solve it for them in the long term.
- hrnn 4y ago
  Didn't they or someone on their behalf even brag a few days ago about the fact they weren't firing anyone and other crypto companies did? I'm pretty certain there was a LinkedIn post about it.
- puranjay 4y ago
  There is no real retail demand for crypto. Happens every bullrun. Retail comes in, gets a heady rush as their $5,000 becomes $20,000 (on paper) practically overnight. So they fomo in more and keep holding through the top before cashing out for less than their initial. 90% swear off crypto and never come back. You can't have retail demand for something that's only meant to go up and do nothing else. There are no "normal" users buying NFTs because they love the art, or buying ETH because they want to use it to get overcollateralized loans on AAVE (when they can get undercollateralized loans for cheaper). I can't understand how VCs wouldn't get something every crypto degen instinctively knows after a single bullrun.
stevebmark 4y ago
It's hard not to see companies like these as immoral given the grift, waste, fraud, wash trading, and uselessness of the crypto space. I know some employees are true believers, but I personally find it sad to see so many engineers flock to the ponzis to try to get rich quick. There are so many better companies out there.
Pv9KKy3 4y ago
They cribbed a fair bit from coinbase. Some of the lines do result in a bit of an eye roll. "We want to assure you these are one-time measures that we took to make sure Bitpanda keeps what it is and has been: a rock solid company and a great employer. " I don't think the "great employer" definition in the normal world involves rescinding job offers etc, but it's fun to read the crypto speak. Keep on being a "rock solid" company compared to those loser companies like AWS etc. I'd personally put crypto folks as far away from "rock solid" as possible!
humbleMouse 4y ago
vegai_ 4y ago
Blockchain companies have been very active at hiring people for Rust positions. Getting to write actual production code is so much better experience than just studying books and tutorials that it doesn't even really compare. A month of that is easily worth more than a year of reading. Even if those companies end up producing nothing of value (which is still not known), they will have given lots of people actual Rust experience which they can apply later on other projects.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
why have companies started making blog posts about firing staff. isn't it an internal matter. are they trying to get ahead of the social media backlash, it seems these strategies are not a good idea. if you need to layoff 20%, then do it, in a dignified way.
vivab0rg 4y ago
Panda extintion event.

166 points by brunojppb 4y ago

jeffwask 4y ago

Is it irony when you name yourself after an endangered species and then your product becomes an endangered species?

themitigating 4y ago
Giant pandas no longer endangered but still vulnerable, says China https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472

chollida1 4y ago

Google, amazon, yahoo and Microsoft all benefited greatly from the early 2000 tech crash in that they had a lot of cash and were able to hire alot of really good tech talent that was suddenly out of a job. Looks like FTX and Binance are about to leave their competition in the dust in this crypto winter. Coinbase seems to have thrown in the towel for now. I would have thought they would see this as an opportunity but their fiscal situation must be alot worse than they are letting on. Which is strange because I would have thought they were better capitalized that they are letting on. We're watching as closely as we can to see if they have alot of bad loans outstanding to failing firms. With Voyager about to go under, Celsius just hiring a firm to guide them through bankruptcy and several other minor firms already going under there will be no shortage of tech talent available to well run firms. When we come out of this downturn in a year or two FTX and Binance are going to be even larger giants than they are now. With no real government oversite over those firms to limit their growth, the next crypto crash could be because one of those two gets into trouble. Another dark horse candidate is Goldman Sachs, they are well capitalized. Look for them to start to buy up distressed crypto assets and go into the next bull market in(probably 2024) as a big crypto player for institutional clients, and possibly for retail under their Marcus brand.

thematrixturtle 4y ago
Binance is in all sorts of legal trouble and FTX has made investments in all sorts of sketchy things. Odds are quite high that either or both blow up before this is over.
dehrmann 4y ago
> yahoo and Microsoft Those two stagnated (at best) in the aughts. Google was taking Yahoo's lunch, and Microsoft had no web vision and was tied up in antitrust headaches.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Yeah and Ballmer screaming every time Google poached someone.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > Google was taking Yahoo's lunch For nearly half the aughts they weren’t even really competitors in the same market. It wasn’t until the latter half of the decade that Yahoo! even tried to be a search company competing with Google and Yahoo! had a definitive lead ahead of Google in mail, finance, etc for virtually all of the decade.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
FTX and Binanace will win because they actually invested in infra and efficiency when building out their products during the good times. They'll reap outsized benefits during the downturn.
hrgiger 4y ago
I skipped binance interview in the past when there was no crisis, their assignment: Design and code a Content Management System (CMS) for Binance. The CMS would used to post articles for the public. The current Binance site supports up to 17 different languages. Each article would have some translations but not all articles have all of the 17 translations. Design and code a RESTful API for the CMS. The user of the CMS would need to input the different translations for the same article. Design a user interface to facilitate this. We would only be looking at the functionalities of the user interface, so do not spend too much time on the design aspects. Derive your own data model as deem fit. The preferred language for backend is Java and frontend is JavaScript though you are free to choose any other languages as well as frameworks. Submit the code as a GitHub repository and make sure that the GitHub repository is public. Remember to add a README file for instructions on how to run the application and explanations (if any).

colesantiago 4y ago

Good. There needs to be more of these layoffs in the crypto casino sector. Hopefully in the next coming years, all crypto firms should go bankrupt and disappear. These exchanges and crypto companies need to stop encouraging customers to buy and gamble their savings and college funds into the crypto pyramid scheme. This needs to end.

melenaboija 4y ago
> “…crypto casino sector” I would not call it casino. Casinos go through regulated scrutiny to test the games probabilities are accurate so you play against math, crypto is a an unregulated market so you (probably) play against or benefit of market inefficiencies.
- tpmx 4y ago
  > Casinos go through regulated scrutiny to test the games probabilities are accurate so you play against math That's only for physical games/machines, right?
  - melenaboija 4y ago
    I had in mind physical casinos so I would say yes but testing also depends on each country regulations. If I recall properly (I worked in the testing industry long time ago and with slot machines) the problem with online games for my country at that time was that there was some confusion on which regulation to apply for them as games where not played where they were hosted.
  - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
    no
- bluelightning2k 4y ago
  At the end of a casino the chips can always be redeemed. There is very little liquidity in crypto. And when one of the whales breaks rank and heads for the exit every other holder will be sitting on chips with some nominal value but absolutely no buyers.

tyrfing 4y ago

550 million raised, last round series C in Aug '21.

nikanj 4y ago
I wonder how much of that was put into BTC. Might only be worth $150 million now
- gitfan86 4y ago
  The smart money doesn't hold any crypto and instead take advantage of the lack of regulations to arbitrage and front run traders and speculators.

rvz 4y ago

This goes in line with the same rule that 90% of these startups like this one will fail. As for crypto projects, the same is true, that 90% of them will also fail and like the survivors of the dotcom crash, only a few of them will also survive. So the anti-crypto and pro-crypto maximalists are going to be both disappointed.

boardwaalk 4y ago
A single data point doesn’t give you any information about how much of the industry will fail. “Goes in line” —- yeah, because absolutely anything would fit. “This is good for bitcoin”
- rvz 4y ago
  That is assuming you have been paying attention to the recent crypto crash, which is affecting the majority of crypto-related companies and projects from DAOs to exchanges. So it is hardly a single data point. > “This is good for bitcoin” And who said that?

mathverse 4y ago

Bitpanda was hiring like crazy before the crypto burst. They were scaling for infinite growth i guess because laying off 20% workforce sounds crazy.

timcavel 4y ago

franze 4y ago

I wonder if they will survive. They hired like crazy here in Vienna. Lots of good people which started to work there are now 2 years later at other companies. I tried to sign up for their service 2 times. Both time it did not work. One time even after the success message after the video verification. Still getting Newsletters which seems to get more and more irregular. Well, we will see. Maybe cutting down will solve it for them in the long term.

hrnn 4y ago
Didn't they or someone on their behalf even brag a few days ago about the fact they weren't firing anyone and other crypto companies did? I'm pretty certain there was a LinkedIn post about it.
puranjay 4y ago
There is no real retail demand for crypto. Happens every bullrun. Retail comes in, gets a heady rush as their $5,000 becomes $20,000 (on paper) practically overnight. So they fomo in more and keep holding through the top before cashing out for less than their initial. 90% swear off crypto and never come back. You can't have retail demand for something that's only meant to go up and do nothing else. There are no "normal" users buying NFTs because they love the art, or buying ETH because they want to use it to get overcollateralized loans on AAVE (when they can get undercollateralized loans for cheaper). I can't understand how VCs wouldn't get something every crypto degen instinctively knows after a single bullrun.

stevebmark 4y ago

It's hard not to see companies like these as immoral given the grift, waste, fraud, wash trading, and uselessness of the crypto space. I know some employees are true believers, but I personally find it sad to see so many engineers flock to the ponzis to try to get rich quick. There are so many better companies out there.

Pv9KKy3 4y ago

They cribbed a fair bit from coinbase. Some of the lines do result in a bit of an eye roll. "We want to assure you these are one-time measures that we took to make sure Bitpanda keeps what it is and has been: a rock solid company and a great employer. " I don't think the "great employer" definition in the normal world involves rescinding job offers etc, but it's fun to read the crypto speak. Keep on being a "rock solid" company compared to those loser companies like AWS etc. I'd personally put crypto folks as far away from "rock solid" as possible!

humbleMouse 4y ago

vegai_ 4y ago

Blockchain companies have been very active at hiring people for Rust positions. Getting to write actual production code is so much better experience than just studying books and tutorials that it doesn't even really compare. A month of that is easily worth more than a year of reading. Even if those companies end up producing nothing of value (which is still not known), they will have given lots of people actual Rust experience which they can apply later on other projects.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

why have companies started making blog posts about firing staff. isn't it an internal matter. are they trying to get ahead of the social media backlash, it seems these strategies are not a good idea. if you need to layoff 20%, then do it, in a dignified way.

vivab0rg 4y ago

Panda extintion event.