Bybit announces second round of layoffs in 2022 to survive bear market

Yes, the bear market weeds out the bad actor, but it also forces the existing players to rethink their business strategies to offset resultant losses. In this effort, crypto exchange Bybit announced mass layoffs for the second time in 2022.

Ben Zhou, the co-founder and CEO of Bybit, announced a reorganization plan amid a prolonged bear market, which involves a steep reduction in the workforce. The “planned downsizing” will affects employees across the board:

“We are all saddened by the fact this reorganization will impact many of our dear Bybuddies and some of our oldest friends.”

Independent reporter Colin Wu highlighted that the layoff ratio is 30%. On June 20, Bybit silently laid off employees, citing unsustainable growth, which was confirmed via leaked internal documents. Bybit’s employee headcount grew from a few hundred to over 2000 in 2 years.

1) Difficult decision made today, but tough times demand tough decisions. I have just announced plans to reduce our workforce as part of an ongoing re-organisation of the business as we move to refocus our efforts for the deepening bear market.

— Ben Zhou (@benbybit) December 4, 2022

While announcing the incoming downsizing, Zhou shared his intent to make the offboarding process as smooth as possible. Sufficing this need for restructuring, Zhou said:

“It’s important to ensure Bybit has the right structure and resources in place to navigate the market slowdown and is nimble enough to seize the many opportunities ahead.”

For affected Bybit employees, the revelation is a hard pill to swallow, but Wu reported that employees would receive three months of salary as compensation.

On Nov. 24, Bybit launched a $100 million support fund to provide liquidity to institutional traders following the FTX collapse.

The fund was made available to eligible market makers and high-frequency trading institutions and distributed at a 0% interest rate.

The maximum amount distributed per applicant was $10 million under the condition that the funds would be used for spot and Tether (USDT) perpetual trading on Bybit.