Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_62bf2533b47ae" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Metamask operations lead set to join the BitDAO ecosystem</li>
 <li>Abra and Bitpanda cut jobs while Kraken still on the hunt for talent</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The global head of business development for <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/9869818Z:US" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Citadel Securities</a> is set to lead the company’s joint venture focused on increasing investor access to crypto, Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-28/citadel-securities-nazarali-leaves-to-run-firm-s-crypto-venture" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.



Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial were in the process of building a cryptocurrency trading platform, a source familiar with the matter <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/citadel-securities-virtu-financial-building-crypto-trading-platform/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told Blockworks last month</a>. Jamil Nazarali is reportedly expected to become CEO of the platform.



Citadel Securities did not immediately return a request for comment.&nbsp;



Web3 gaming company Immutable hired a former global head of product design for payments at Facebook to lead the protocol’s product design.



Henry Cho will help the company build an API-only user experience that enables mainstream developers to build simply.&nbsp;



“Immutable will continue hiring the best talent across the globe to continue building our vision of enabling the next billion players to truly own their in-game items,” Immutable co-founder Robbie Ferguson said in a Twitter post.



Andrei Serjantov joined crypto startup Nym as its chief financial officer. He is set to develop the company’s multi-purpose mixnet that helps enable privacy for any application, as well as the underlying finances of its NYM token.



Serjantov joins Nym from French banking group BNP Paribas, where he worked for 16 years. He was most recently the company’s head of electronic credit trading and head of flow credit quantitative research.



“As the bear market rages on, all eyes are on crypto to prove its worth,” Serjantov said in a statement. “Skeptics assume people join crypto to make a quick buck and scam the typical user, but those working through the bear market have something more to prove.”



The former operations lead for self custodial wallet MetaMask is set to join the BitDAO ecosystem to accelerate the adoption of Web3 gaming.



Jacob Cantele is now head of product strategy for BitDAO’s <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=RahCDqBPLaBstxmOiHGQa1CDZiEMesp8Rq0nyXTHCEpKTcTSFrZNgyb-TjJRHcgYqG_b2Y9OQw4S5FdLSsh8dg==" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Windranger Labs</a> and head of product for the <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=8VFB9yNCFXlRwlXlNa_pyfLRfykSOvleobU6PPWrNw6gy8oJY0kZWyRKlngn5dRx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Game7</a> DAO. 



Before working at MetaMask, Cantele led product for the Panvala grant funding DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), one of the earliest grant DAOs in the Web3 ecosystem.&nbsp;



NFT marketplace Magic Eden hired Joseph Doll to the role of general counsel.



Doll previously served as a corporate associate for Fenwick &amp; West, where he structured, negotiated and executed equity and token funding.



Web3 Ventures appointed Zach Rosen to its advisory board as the company gains Rosen’s expertise in software engineering and investment banking.&nbsp;



Rosen is a co-founder of Brydge, a startup that enables decentralized applications to deploy on one chain and accept payments from others. He said in a statement that he would leverage his network and background within the Web3 space to help identify and evaluate crypto projects for Web3 Ventures’ platform.



Crypto trading and lending platform Abra reportedly laid off about a dozen employees this week as market turbulence continues. Abra CEO Bill Barhydt <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/155209/abra-becomes-latest-crypto-firm-to-cut-jobs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told The Block</a> that the job cuts — representing about 5% of the company’s workforce — were done “purely as a cost-saving measure.”



An Abra spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. &nbsp; &nbsp;



In case you missed it, crypto exchange Bitpanda <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bitpanda-to-slash-nearly-30-of-workforce-citing-recession-threat/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">is letting go about a third of its workforce</a>. The company, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, wrote in a <a href="https://blog.bitpanda.com/en/way-forward" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">letter to employees</a> that it wants to cut down its headcount from more than 1,000 to 730 as it seeks to improve its financial health.



Meanwhile, crypto exchange Kraken posted more than 600 new job ads in the United States in the last seven days, according to a June 29 study by <a href="https://cryptojobslist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto Jobs List</a>. The Kraken listings account for nearly 20% of the new American crypto job ads over the span.



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Latest in Crypto Hiring: Former Facebook, BNP Paribas Pros Join Space

Shalini Nagarajan

<div id="highlights-block_62b999ed17c35" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“Nobody knows when the market sentiment will change,” Bitpanda told employees</li>
 <li>Bitpanda is struggling to keep up with the crypto industry’s pace, the firm admitted</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Bitpanda is letting go of about a third of its workforce as the firm looks to navigate a period of turbulent markets and uncertainty.



The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange said in a <a href="https://blog.bitpanda.com/en/way-forward" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">letter to employees</a> that it wants to cut down its headcount from more than 1,000 to 730, citing a need to improve its financial health against the effects of an anticipated recession.



“Over the past few months, the market sentiment has dramatically changed, fuelled by geopolitical tensions, rising inflation and concerns about the imminence of a recession,” Bitpanda said in the letter.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“There’s lots of uncertainty in the financial markets right now and, while we do know that the industry is cyclical, nobody knows when the market sentiment will change.”</blockquote>



Bitpanda admitted to facing challenges in keeping pace with the crypto industry’s growth. The company also said it has rescinded new offers as the roles it was previously hiring for are no longer available. It now plans to focus on safety and compliance, user experience, education and community.



&#8220;Move fast and break things&#8221; has been the motto of many companies looking to adapt [in] the Web3 space, Sheraz Ahmed, managing partner at STORM Partners, told Blockworks. “Now we can&#8217;t be acting surprised when the latter happens after the former,” he said.



The Vienna-based firm joins a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-industry-layoffs-may-have-unintended-consequences/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">series of other crypto firms</a> looking to cut costs by slashing staff. Coinbase, one of the best-known exchanges, recently said it would <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/coinbase-cut-workforce-ceo-wary-of-potential-recession/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cut 1,100 jobs</a> due to expectations of a recession. <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/coinbase-backed-vauld-cuts-workforce-by-30-seeks-to-halve-exec-pay/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vauld</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cryptocurrency-lender-blockfi-set-to-cut-staff-by-a-fifth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BlockFi</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-com-cutting-5-of-workforce-amid-digital-asset-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto.com</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/gemini-joins-growing-list-of-crypto-exchanges-cutting-staff-amid-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gemini</a>, BitMEX, Buenbit and Bitso have all recently announced layoffs during a difficult period for the industry.



Record inflation and commodity shortages due to Russia’s war in Ukraine have created production challenges all over the world. David Malpass, head of the World Bank, said on Sunday that some countries will find it especially <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/06/27/world-bank-david-malpass-us-global-recession-inflation-interest-rates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hard to avoid a recession</a>.&nbsp;



Economists at Goldman Sachs see an increased risk of a US recession. In a research note dated June 22, the bank said it now estimates a 30% probability the US economy enters a recession over the next year, up from a previous estimation of 15%. Additionally, it sees a 25% conditional probability of a recession in the second year if one is avoided in the first.



Bitpanda last raised $263 million in a Series C round at a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-exchange-bitpanda-valuation-spikes-242-to-4-1b-in-five-months/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$4.1 billion valuation</a> in August 2021. The company said it was the first Austria-based firm to pass the billion dollar valuation mark.



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Bitpanda To Slash Nearly 30% of Workforce, Citing Recession Threat

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_611bbc90aa229" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The seven-year-old company is one of Europe’s fastest growing financial technology companies and was the first Austrian-based company to pass the billion-dollar valuation mark, the company said</li>
 <li>In August, multiple other cryptocurrency exchange platforms reached unicorn status &#8212; and it’s not even the end of the month. </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Bitpanda has its “hypergrowth mode on” as it announced its new valuation of $4.1 billion and funding of $263 million in a Series C round, just five months after its last valuation and raise, the company’s co-founder and co-CEO Eric Demuth said in a post Tuesday.&nbsp;



The new valuation raises the company about 242% from its previous valuation of $1.2 billion in March, when the crypto exchange company <a href="https://blog.bitpanda.com/dear-pandas/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">first marked</a> its unicorn status after raising $170 million in a Series B round.&nbsp;



The Series C investment round was led by Valar Ventures, with the participation of billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard and REDO Ventures, as well as existing investors LeadBlock Partners and Jump Capital, Demuth said. The funding will be used to build the team, open new offices and launch new markets and products as the company continues to scale, he said.&nbsp;



The seven-year-old company founded by Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer, is one of Europe’s fastest growing financial technology companies and was the first Austrian-based company to pass the billion-dollar valuation mark, the company said.&nbsp;



It began as a crypto-trading company and has grown into an investment platform of 3 million users where investors can trade stocks, cryptocurrencies and precious metals with any amount of money, Demuth said.&nbsp;



Although Bitpanda hit unicorn status in March, this new valuation enhances its place on a list of over 900 private companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, according to <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/lists/crunchbase-private-unicorn-company-list/f406c855-fff9-419b-9b44-324e1bfe3081/organization.companies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data</a> on the Crunchbase Unicorn Board.&nbsp;



In August, multiple other cryptocurrency exchange platforms reached unicorn status &#8212; and it’s not even the end of the month.&nbsp;



Last week, Cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinDCX, scored $90 million in Series C funding, making it India’s first crypto-related unicorn, while FalconX raised $210 million in Series C funding to expand into Asia, Blockworks previously <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/falconx-coindcx-hit-unicorn-status-amid-uncertain-regulatory-environment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.



Earlier this month, Singapore-based crypto financial service platform <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/matrixport-raises-100m-and-hits-unicorn-status-with-1b-valuation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Matrixport</a> announced it closed its $100 million Series C funding round also with a valuation over $1 billion.



In late July, the first non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea also reached unicorn status after raising $100 million in a Series B funding round led by a16z, which brought its valuation to $1.5 billion, Blockworks <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/a16z-leads-100m-round-for-nft-unicorn-opensea/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>. These crypto-companies are some of the latest organizations to join the growing list of unicorns in the global marketplace.



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