Amid economic slowdown, Indian crypto exchange WazirX has laid off nearly 40 percent of its workforce.
As many as 50 to 70 of 150 WazirX employees were laid off, CoinDesk reported citing sources.
The employees who were laid offer informed on Friday that they would be paid for 45 days, and would not be required to report to work and their access was withdrawn.
"The crypto market has been in the grip of a bear market because of the current global economic slowdown. The Indian crypto industry has had its unique problems with respect to taxes, regulations and banking access. This has lead to a dramatic fall in volumes in all Indian crypto exchanges," WazirX said in a statement, reported CoinDesk.
"As India's No 1. exchange, our priority is to be financially stable and to continue serving our customers. To achieve this, we've had to reduce our staff to weather the crypto winter. This situation is similar to the trying times the industry faced in 2018; at that time, we doubled down and built our innovative P2P engine," the statement said.
The workforce has been cut from various departments including customer support, HR, and other departments. Managers, Analysts, Associate Managers/Team leaders were among those laid off said one the sources.
The entire public policy and communication team was fired, said another employee who lost his job.
"The company was never really forthcoming or transparent with its financial position, either when it was doing well or now," said an employee who lost his job.
WazirX daily trading volumes have been declining from a one year high of 478 million in October 2021 to 1.5 million in October 2022, according to CoinGecko data.
WazirX has been facing problems including public spat with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao about whether Binance is the parent company of the Indian exchange.