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Blockchain.com cuts 25% workforce amid crypto bear market
- medo-bear 4y agoa week ago the market was worth cca 800B. today the market is worth over 1T. for some perspective just how huge this is, ukraine's foreign debt is at 20B, or 10% of the weekly growth of the crypto market. some crash lol
- leereeves 4y agoThe crash happened more than a week ago. What was the crypto market worth three months ago?
- medo-bear 4y agohttps://www.livecoinwatch.com/crypto-market-cap https://www.livecoinwatch.com/crypto-market-cap it was hardly a crash. crypto market is simply huge. there is no denying this
- wolongong942 4y agoLiquidity is what actually matters here. Your 1t figure includes all of the celciuscoins and many other coins which can't be sold in any meaningful amount.
- medo-bear 4y agosure much like in company valuations liquidity is an issue. however the fact that the stable coin marketcap is worth 180B gives good liquidity to the whole ecosystem
- Sentino 4y agoI'm not sure why you read the numbers different than I do but your provided link shows a loss of 2/3. And is that really a lot of money in a global sense?
- medo-bear 4y agoit depends how you read it? do you look at the global picture. the last "crash" happened after the market reached a peak of 700B value. today the market is worth more than that even after crashing. my point is that the crypto market shows crash-resilience unlike anything else that has actually crashed
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rvz 4y agoFor those who bought Bitcoin at around $60K - $40K it is indeed a giant crash from its previous high which it has lost 60% of its value. It is possible that if can crash another 60% to $10K, taking the whole crypto market with it. But we'll see. > > my point is that the crypto market shows crash-resilience unlike anything else that has actually crashed Yes. Crypto has had many 'crashes' but it seems that it isn't going to completely go away as wrongly predicted in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and now 2022. But again, as the commenters still fail to notice, the whole market (including crypto) has crashed.
- medo-bear 4y agoif you bought into the predominant sentiment on HN (imminent crypto collapse) in 2018 and sold you would have had some serious losses. if you held your position you would have made some serious gains > It is possible that if can crash another 60% to $10K, taking the whole crypto market with it. But we'll see. judging by the past week, it doesnt look like it
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoI'll give you credit, your ability to characterize a 60% drop (so far) as "not a crash" is either pure uncut copium or the some top notch trolling.
- jimmydorry 4y ago50% or greater is not particularly unusual... even for Bitcoin. Going off some highs and immediate lows from the top Google result: * June 2011: -99% ($32 to $0.01) * August 2012: -56% * April 2013: -83% ($260 to $50) * December 2013: -50% * December 2017-December 2018: -84% ($20,000 to $4,000) * March 2020: -50% ($10,000 to $4,000) * May 2021: -53% ($64,000 to $31,000)
- medo-bear 4y agoalso noteworthy is the fact that if you bought BTC in 2018 just before the crash at 20K and held you would have made some serious money even at today's "crashed" prices. however if you bought into the predominant sentiment on HN (imminent crypto collapse) and sold you would have had some serious losses
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoAll you've proven is that Bitcoin crashes a lot. This is not a surprise to anyone.
- gingericha 4y ago~$3T according to this article https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-rally-in-bitcoin-and-ether-push-crypto-market-cap-back-above-241-trillion-as-digital-assets-struggle-against-bear-market/ar-AAZIkaI https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-rally-in-bitcoin-a...
- IncRnd 4y agoA person would think that a system whose purpose is to count would have a better understanding of $1T vs $2T vs $3T. The reason for that discrepancy is that crypto is not about the proper count of dollars.
- CapricornNoble 4y agoBetter yet, on 9 November 2021 (BTC's all-time high), the crypto market cap was closer to ~$2T: https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20211109/ https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20211109/ Trading volume for Tether alone on that day was ~$93B, greater than the ENTIRE market's volume today ($89B).
- medo-bear 4y agoyou are surprised that people will cash out after highs?
- neogodless 4y agoYou can't tell the difference between a slight decrease in asset prices due to taking profits, and a 60% crash?
- medo-bear 4y agocrypto is very much alive so id say its a correction and not a crash
- IntelMiner 4y agoHow much was the US real estate bubble before it popped?
- est31 4y ago1.3 T according to: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2022/html/ecb.sp220425~6436006db0.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2022/html/ecb.sp220...
- medo-bear 4y agopeople are not going into debt to buy crypto
- nik736 4y agoI wouldn't say that. I know of people who took debt to get crypto because "the return will be much higher".
- medo-bear 4y agosure there are going to be some cases (outliers) but nothing like in the housing bubble
- birracerveza 4y agoI have no sources and neither do you, but I am pretty sure that this statement is factually wrong.
- NikolaNovak 4y agoSuch numbers always fascinate me, and showcase my ignorance (I freely admit it; I had a "Ask HN" recently about some "Economy 101" suggestions:) of both regular financial/economy, as well as crypto. It's 1T worth of... what? I can kinda sorta understand 1T of car factories and farms and food plants. I can understand the over-simplified-into-nothingness capital model of I give you $1000, you build a factory, you build cars, you create value, eventually you give me back $1100. Or something. I can even intuitively understand (or fool myself) as to 1T of services - tourism, accounting, software, consulting. I can see its place in the world, the interconnectedness with industry and people and products and markets. I cannot visualize/intuitively understand 1T of crypto. It feels so... insular, self-contained. 1T of... companies running datacentres running random calculations... for money, kind of? People giving each other more and more non-crypto money and making it very complex? It feels like this whirl-storm of activity, vortex that sucks stuff ("real world money") in, but I don't understand its connectivity to outside world, it's output, the balance of interfaces. My mental image is incomplete and clearly wrong. (I suppose I should think of it more along the lines of, say, Gold market, but I don't understand that either :D )
- junofan 4y agoI deposit a dollar in a bank account somewhere and mint one DollarCoin. The crypto market cap is $1. Repeat that several times and add lending.
- Sentino 4y agoInteresting that you wrote that just like that. Now apparently we have just created 1$ out of thin air. I like that example as it already shows one of the fundamental risks of crypto. And now you can't even just say BTC or eth or stable coin because this is true for all.
- kayamon 4y agoYou can't just mint a new BTC on demand -- the hashing takes a fixed amount of time/energy that you have to wait for.
- yieldcrv 4y ago> The exchange recently revealed it was dealing with a $270 million shortfall from lending to beleaguered hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. oh okay so they could have just not done that and they would be immune to the market conditions > The reduction brings the firm’s staffing back to January 2022 levels what
- simmerup 4y agoStories like this make me wonder why I keep getting job advertisements from crypto companies for absolute insane amounts of money.
- LilBytes 4y agoI wondered the same, still getting them now and I'm increasingly happy I've said no. I wasn't on the market to begin with but even if I was, Crypto has been too grey for me to gamble on. Now? It's straight up red.
- yieldcrv 4y agoand why do you think that is an accurate conclusion for you? are you saying that you are incapable of evaluating any specific company? You cant tell the difference between working for Do Kwon or working for Blockchain.com or working for Coinbase? are you saying that you can’t tell the difference between using your own money to buy crypto versus using none of your money and getting showered with 7-figures of crypto over 3 months that might be worth 6 figures by the time you have it to sell? Are you saying that Blockchain.com’s layoffs back to headcount levels 6 months ago moves crypto from “grey” area to “red” area for you despite similar headcount reductions being seen across the tech sector? Were you saying grey/red from a regulatory aspect? Circling back to your inability of evaluating an employment opportunity on your own? what were you saying and how did you get it from this headline…?
- yieldcrv 4y agoTheir headcounts usually aren't large and they make insane amounts of money Whats the mystery there? They pay in cash, and tokens with short vesting periods of a few months which are sellable for cash, saving you 4-8 years of your life working at FANGs or being paid in illiquid lottery tickets at non-crypto startups Some also pay in traditional equity (the illiquid lottery tickets), but wont pretend like thats the good deal like all web 2.0 startups try to gaslight their employees into thinking Its pretty competitive. Remove the “crypto” peculiarity and you just have revenue generating tech startups with a product they can give you that’s sellable for cash on ebay, who might also offer you some ownership in the company also sellable at a higher price since there are a bunch of people looking to buy shares of revenue generating tech startups.
- bluelightning2k 4y agoThe main proposition of crypto (aside from speculation because "graph goes up") is that you don't need a centralized exchange. Then all these centralized exchanges popped up to make it easier. Whenever I see these types of announcement I have two reactions: a) I cheer, because the sooner the pyramid collapses the less the damage. b) I'm sad because these are real people losing real jobs
- cowtools 4y agoreal jobs? Also, I don't think that the main proposition of cryptocurrency is that you don't need a centralized exchange. If you want to exchange fiat for cryptocurrency via the credit card or bank transfer, you need a trusted peer who can accept those forms of payment- whether that's a business or an individual. The centralization and insecurity of exchanges is due to their weakest link- the centralization and insecurity of the fiat system.
- bluelightning2k 4y agoYeah I agree. That was kind of my point also -- the "decentralized" block-chain is pretty reliant on centralized exchanges. Real jobs is an interesting one. To the individuals yes they are real. To the economy there is no value creation and therefore the work done by these companies is just ultimately burning investor dollars & the planet in a lose:lose situation (as with everything crypto related).
- birracerveza 4y ago> the "decentralized" block-chain is pretty reliant on centralized exchanges. ...for now
- chrisseaton 4y ago> real jobs? If someone’s paying you then it’s a real job.
- SilasX 4y agoThe main purpose of cash (aside from drug empires) is that you don’t need a centralized service to make transactions. Then all those banks and wire services popped up for cases where physical cash doesn’t work.
- bluelightning2k 4y agoAn exchange is kind of like thermodynamics. No matter how complex and viable a perpetual motion machine looks, you can't get more energy out than goes in. Similarly - no complex restructuring of money into different assets will make more money come out than goes in. Money only grows in a non zero-sum way when it's put to work in the real world: e.g. creating value by creating a product which is more valuable than the sum of its parts.
- cowtools 4y agoThe value that cryptocurrency provides is as a payment network between less trustworthy parties. In cryptocurrency, there is a net transfer of wealth from users (in the form of transaction fees) and owners (in the form of inflation/block reward) to miners, who provide value by securing the network. But I agree that in terms of literal dollars, you could define some sort of "Gauss' Law of Economics" along the lines of: The amount of dollars a financial entity has is equal to the time-integral of the rate of dollars entering the system minus the rate of dollars leaving the system.
- bluelightning2k 4y agoThe argument that the payments themselves are a service (while valid) has to be broadly competitive with the mainstream alternative. So for "securing the network" crypto is very, very clearly less secure than conventional payments. (Far more hacks, defaults, and not centrally backed by government). And the fees charged are vastly more and vastly slower. The service is therefore so much worse at such a higher cost that it seems more like the arbitrary product that a Multi Level Marketing firm ostensibly sells than a real offering. (And the only real USP of "enables criminal activity" is not a valid USP that anyone should allow or touch.)
- cowtools 4y agoThere are cryptocurrency systems like Nano or GNU Taler which can be broadly competitive with the alternatives AFIK, so long you are using them in a peer-to-peer manner that doesn't involve Fiat. >And the fees charged are vastly more and vastly slower. ...If you are using a system like Bitcoin or Etherium that has poorly-adjusted artificial limitations on consensus bandwidth. Yes, the cryptocurrency market at large needs a wake up call. >And the only real USP of "enables criminal activity" is not a valid USP that anyone should allow or touch. I don't think all less-trustworthy payments should fall under this umbrella of "criminal activity". If I want to send some money to a anonymous person on IRC, I'm not going to give them my credit card info let alone paypal because they're attached to my personal information which could be used to blackmail/dox me. There is a reasonable use-case for giving the average person the same privacy they expect from cash, but with the ability to make transfers over the internet (that are signed in a secure way!). But in any case the whole point of cryptocurrency is to act non-permissively. You might be right to disagree with its criminal use, especially if you live in a free society (where we agree on definitions of crime that are non-authoritarian). But regardless of what either of us think, the system will continue to develop as long as there is financial interest in DN infrastructure and the cryptography is sound.
- bluelightning2k 4y agoAnyone else curious to see what terms Three Arrows Capital was offering? For seemingly everyone in crypto to have such significant exposure to them, it looks like the entire industry was funneling retail funds into 3AC. Maybe some of these clear ponzi schemes offering 20% yield were themselves promised 20.5% yield by 3AC. It's an interesting take. Because it kind of lets everyone off the hook. Wild speculation here BUT... If I'm a token and I offer investors 20% but loan to 3AC at 20.5% and they seem credible, I can semi-credibly blame their unexpected default. For their role as a hedge-fund 3AC can buy tokens with money loaned from those same tokens, pay dividends as they rise and simply fold as they fall.
- dustinmoris 4y agoCrypto is the future!! Buy the dip!!! HODL!!! (except our own employees) irony…
- randomopining 4y agoProb a lot of these companies are just cutting the bottom bucket. Don't companies like banks usually do this during a little downturn, using the "economic conditions" as an excuse even though they know it's just 6-12 months max.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago"Looking bullish."
- birracerveza 4y ago"This is good for Bitcoin"
- bearjaws 4y agoThe number of "crypto developers" I have gotten applications from is easily 3:1 when compared to people with more regular "full stack" experience. Its way more than these large layoffs, even the smaller players have made big cuts.
- matrix_overload 4y agoCrypto used to be the domain with the most "free money" floating around and the most need to outhire your competitors. Of course, they overhired with a much lower bar than the industry in general, and of course the market will now be flooded with these developers.
- scottLobster 4y agoOne interesting way to look at it is that the Crypto market is experiencing a 2008-like crisis (unregulated/less regulated shadow banks going bust), but without any bailouts. Wonder if they'll learn the same lessons and come up with a Crypto federal reserve (likely called Unbanked DAO of Courage represented by Mark Wahlberg or some shit). Would be ironic.
- thehappypm 4y agoStill waiting on the great Beanie Baby bailout too.
- jsutton 4y agoBingo! Found the reliable Beanie Babies comment in a HN article about crypto :)
- thehappypm 4y agoOmg hilarious !
- kkielhofner 4y agoSome of the activities of SBF/FTX could be considered a bailout of sorts, just not a government one.
- tmp_anon_22 4y ago> likely called Unbanked DAO of Courage represented by Mark Wahlberg The celebrity endorsements of Crypto related investment platforms and product is so gross. Using themes like "you don't have to be smart to trade cypto" "be bold" its so gross.
- Pakdef 4y agoSome are getting bailed out by one of the largest exchange. Last I heard, there was a few billion dollars left in the bailout fund. https://currency.com/ftx-bails-out-voyager-and-blockfi https://currency.com/ftx-bails-out-voyager-and-blockfi
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y agothese exchanges are casinos for hopeless millennials and zoomers the tokens are more like casino chips than money or stocks
- Ekaros 4y agoEvery day I'm more mystified and scared of where does all this money come from, and where it goes... To me it feels like nothing makes any sense. Who has this much money to throw at essentially gambling without any real revenue sources.
- latchkey 4y agoHow it started: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/08/crypto-exchange-blockchaincom-faces-250m-hit-on-loans-to-three-arrows-capital/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/08/crypto-exchange... “We are not getting the sense there is any kind of stress on the organization,” the person said. How it is going, this article.
- sigmoid10 4y agoTbf, that first article was about bad investment choices on their part. In last year's market, they'd just brush this off like nothing. But the current bear market is killing them (and all the other crypto fintechs) and these things just accelerate their fall.
- latchkey 4y agoI disagree. The statement was clearly 'everything is fine' and when I read it, I entirely expected this new article to come out a few days later. I was at a small DeFi conference in May and there were a number of BC.com people there. Young kids with little experience in the industry. They had clearly over hired. On top of it, they did the cardinal sin of 'never invest more than you are afraid to lose'. They went into a high risk venture and lost hard. It isn't just the bear market. Not all other crypto fintechs.
- sigmoid10 4y agoI see crypto fintech startups failing everywhere. It's not the companies, it's the market. The fact that dumb investors threw money at them expecting this insane growth to continue didn't necessarily help, but if Bitcoin was still going strong, few to none of those companies would be in this kind of trouble.
- latchkey 4y agoYou see the news and news focuses on the bad. Not all crypto fintech startups are failing. Dig a bit deeper. For anyone, like myself, that have been in the crypto scene for a very long time, Bitcoin is doing just fine. Markets go up, markets go down. Nothing new here.