Chainlink Adds Staking After Cutting Sales Staffers

The DeFi oracle provider is the latest victim of the crypto market downturn, as the team looks to boost token economic incentives

article-image

MJgraphics/Shutterstock.com

share

Mark Chainlink Labs as the latest crypto company instituting layoffs and blaming the bear market — while lining up opportunistic new products. 

The firm — which powers oracle solutions and related smart contracts tied into Chainlink’s blockchain ecosystem — laid off a “good chunk” of its sales staffers in recent weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter. A second source confirmed cuts took place, adding that the focus of the downsizing was around Chainlink Labs’ enterprise sales team, which predominantly deals with institutions.

Chainlink Labs’ unspecified number of cuts are the latest indicator of an emerging trend. It’s not new that digital asset-focused companies have been forced by the market to lay off staffers to preserve balance sheets. But such efforts have been increasingly concentrated on sales and marketing seats, including business development and investor relations roles.

The rationale: Potential institutional customers have been dropping like flies as formerly interested parties put their crypto dealings on pause in the wake of FTX’s bankruptcy. It’s hard to justify shelling out for an entire sales team, according to one source, when they “don’t really have anyone to call.”

A spokesperson for Chainlink Labs said the platform is still seeing “massive demand” for its core and emerging products — and largely declined to comment on the recent layoffs. Sources were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business dealings. 

“As we are constantly evaluating our business, we recently opted to shift some headcount investment from sales into product and engineering,” the spokesperson said. The startup is continuing to add to its overall headcount, the representative added. The company did make several key hires earlier this year. 

Indeed, Chainlink on Tuesday rolled out a new staking mechanism for holders of its token, LINK. The idea is to stake LINK tokens to power and execute on smart contracts that tie into Chainlink’s oracle solution. In digital assets, oracles strive, in part, to serve as a hub of sorts that connects different blockchains under the aim of guiding interoperability. 

Chainlink representatives dubbed the effort as ushering in a “new era of sustainable growth and security” for the protocol. The staking pool helps maintain Chainlink’s data-focused efforts between the dollar and ether, specifically — with staking participants being rewarded for monitoring lapses in the performance of the tool.

The staking pool, which is slated to be in beta testing for an unspecified period, is set to be initially capped at 25 million LINK token, good for 2.5% of the protocol’s circulating supply and about 5% of its total supply.

What exactly spurred the layoffs is not clear, but one source attributed the move to the downturn in broader cryptocurrency markets. And the cuts could have been even steeper. The source said there were internal, high-level conversations in recent weeks about parting ways with the entire institutional sales team. 

That didn’t happen, the source said — and it appears a middle ground was found in terms of keeping higher-performing salespeople and parting ways with underperforming ones. 

“If you have exposure to all of this, you have to cut somewhere,” the source said. “And, now, it’s always sales…They’re not essential [in a bear market].”


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked Advisory.jpg

Research

ACP-125 represents a strategic opportunity to enhance Avalanche's competitive position in the Layer-1 blockchain ecosystem. Based on our previous ACP-77 analysis paired with an analysis of ACP-125, Avalanche is prioritizing kick-starting growth and network effects in its ecosystem while trading off short-term value accrual.

article-image

Institutional adoption “moves slower than we want,” exec says, but could follow “an exponential curve from Q1 onwards”

article-image

FTX is still in bankruptcy proceedings, but the process is set to come to an end fairly soon

article-image

“BIO can be thought of as a Y Combinator for onchain Science,” Binance said in a statement

article-image

In case you missed it, BitGo last week appointed the former president of Silvergate Bank as part of its push into stablecoins

article-image

Plus, TapSwap plans to solve tap-to-earn with an all-new Web3 gaming platform

article-image

There are a few possible outcomes now that Trump will be moving back to Washington in January