Crypto Markets Witness Massive Selloff; Firms Cut Staff

By Swati Kishore

With cryptocurrency companies cutting staff owing to the crypto market selloff, today’s morning in Asia is highlighted by slump in the prices of some of the major cryptocurrencies.

At the time of writing the news, Bitcoin was trading at USD 3,491.78, down -2.92%.

The third largest digital currency by market capitalization, Ether slipped -1.88% to trade at USD 92.01.

Ripple, the second most valuable digital currency was trading at USD 0.309293, down by 0.32%.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that companies dealing in digital tokens are cutting staff to stay afloat during this period which is highlighted by massive market selloff.

ConsenSys, the Brooklyn-based Blockchain software technology company, is planning to lay off as much as 13% of its total staff. Further, it is reported that Steemit, the Blockchain-based social networking organization, has laid off 70% of its employees!

Joseph Lubin, the ConsenSys Founder, said on the matter:

“As things get real we have to be a lean, business-minded organization.”

This year, Bitcoin was at its peak in January 2018 when its price touched the highs of USD 17, 172.3. Since then, the world’s largest and most well-known digital currency has dropped 80% to reach its lowest point. As per data from CoinMarketCap, the total digital currency market cap has taken a nosedive of upto 7 times from the beginning of the year.

Even though the crypto market is facing the heat, worldwide organizations are actively implementing Distributed Ledger Technology to fix global issues.

UNICEF has announced that it will be investing USD 100,000 in six Blockchain-based startups for the development of open-source Blockchain prototypes within the span of one year.

Chris Fabian, the Innovation Principal Adviser at UNICEF was quoted as saying:

“Blockchain technology is still at an early stage – and there is a great deal of experimentation, failure, and learning ahead of us as we see how, and where, we can use this technology to create a better world.”

In Canada, the western province of Alberta launched the country’s first cryptocurrency called the Calgary Digital Dollars last week. The digital currency is launched with the aim of fortifying not for profit organizations and small firms.