Crypto Hiring: Yuga Labs resumes layoffs, CEO says company ‘lost its way’

Less than seven months after its last round of layoffs, Web3 gaming and NFT company Yuga Labs cut more roles Friday. It was not clear how many staff were affected by the layoffs.

“To put it simply: Yuga lost its way. Getting ourselves centered and on the right path means being a smaller, more agile and cryptonative team,” CEO Greg Solano wrote in a Slack message that he then screenshotted and posted on X to announce the restructuring.

Crypto-nativity was one of Solano’s pledges when he took over as CEO in February. Solano was a Yuga Labs co-founder who took back the reins from former Activision Blizzard CEO Daniel Alegre less than a year into Alegre’s tenure.

In the aftermath of Harvard-educated Alegre’s regime, Yuga’s creative spirit has been partially squelched by “labyrinthine corporate processes,” Solano wrote Monday.

The owner of the Bored Apes and CryptoPunks intellectual property last made layoffs in October 2023, saying at the time the company still had over 120 employees.

In recent months, Yuga has placed increasing emphasis on its Otherside metaverse project, though the execution hasn’t been flawless. Some users were underwhelmed by a recent play test, with one saying the Otherside felt like a “proof of concept.”

In other hiring news from Yuga Labs, Won Kim announced this week he’d left Bored Room Ventures to become the company’s head of brand partnerships.

Anchorage, DCG make executive hires

Two institutionally-focused crypto firms made executive hires this week.

Anchorage Digital made former Coinbase Custody CEO Aaron Schnarch its chief operating officer. In the role, Schnarch will oversee “all business lines including custody, trading, staking, settlement and self-custody, as well as sales, marketing and business development,” Anchorage said in a statement.

It’s the latest of a few hiring moves Anchorage has made lately. Co-founder and former company president Diogo Mónica transitioned to Executive Chairman of the Board in March and joined Haun Ventures as a general partner. A week prior, Anchorage made SEC veteran TuongVy Le its general counsel.

Also this week, Digital Currency Group made Aimee Killeen its chief legal officer. Killeen was most recently in the same role at fintech firm Billtrust.

Likely near the top of Killeen’s to-do list will be dealing with DCG’s ongoing legal battle with New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Other notable hiring news

Polygon’s chief operating officer is stepping down, and the company will be cutting the role entirely, DL News reported. Lead developer relations engineer Tony Olendo left Polygon this week. On the other side of things, Will Macfie became Polygon’s director of growth marketing.
Drew Van der Werff quit Brevan Howard Digital to become an “independent researcher.”
Crypto reporters Lyllah Ledesma of CoinDesk and Adam Morgan McCarthy of DL News left their roles. McCarthy is now an analyst at crypto research firm Kaiko.

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