At least two startups, Quidax and Lazerpay, have acknowledged their ongoing pains. Quidax, an exchange that has processed over $3 billion in crypto transactions, laid off a fifth of its staff last week, citing a need to be “more capital-efficient” to survive the downturn. The four-year-old company laid off employees from its marketing, engineering, business, and product teams, as the drop in the value of cryptocurrencies reduced transaction volumes and, consequently, company revenues. Unlike Nestcoin, a Lagos-based crypto exchange laid off staff because $4 million of its operating capital had been deposited with FTX, Quidax said its problems are unconnected to FTX’s collapse. The company insisted that customer funds are safe, and that it is not on the verge of shutting down. Lazerpay, a crypto payments processing company that launched in February, has made the same claim even as it has also started layoffs.
