WazirX, an Indian exchange, has fired several employees. The company shared the statement with CoinDesk Saturday. Workers laid off were informed that they would be paid for 45 calendar days.
Three sources close to the matter confirmed that 50-70 employees, or 40%, were among those laid off at the exchange. On Friday, the workers who were laid off were informed that they would be paid for 45 calendar days and would not have to report for work. Their accesses were also withdrawn simultaneously.
WazirX released a statement Saturday saying that the crypto market was in a bear market due to the global economic slowdown.
The Indian crypto market has faced unique challenges in terms of taxes, regulations, and banking access. This has led to a drastic fall in volume on all Indian crypto exchanges.”
The company stated that India’s No. 1 exchange is financially sound and will continue to serve its customers. To achieve this we had to cut our staff to survive the crypto winter. This is similar to 2018’s difficult times in the crypto industry. We doubled down on our P2P engine and increased our staff. The crypto market operates in cycles. A bear market is always followed by a bull market. We will remain focused on customer needs and build. We are certain that we will be stronger when the bull markets arrives.”
According to one source, “the workforce was cut from many departments, including customer support and HR.” Managers, analysts, associate managers/team leaders were among the people who were laid off. According to another employee, the entire public policy and communications team was dismissed.
One WazirX employee who was “abruptly fired” by WazirX on Friday said that the company was not forthcoming or transparent about its financial situation.
According to data, WazirX daily trading volumes are steadily falling from a peak of 478 millions on October 28, 2021, to 1.5 million on Oct 1, 2022. Sources said that trading volumes have fallen below a million on some days and that this is not sufficient to support operations.
After India implemented severe crypto tax laws in March 2022, the decline in trading volumes started. WazirX co-founder Nischal Shilk stated to CoinDesk that “we have entered into a period of pain.
The Indian exchange has faced a number of issues in recent days. These include an online dispute between Shetty, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao over whether Binance is the parent of the Indian stock exchange. According to CoinGecko data, daily trading volumes were approximately 5 million at the time of the spat, but they dropped to less than 2million afterward.
Two employees were laid off and stated that they were informed of their financial security during an all-hands meeting following the online spat.
WazirX was also the target of an investigation into money laundering by India’s Directorate of Enforcement. This included a raid on one of WazirX directors.
