The bearish trend in the cryptocurrency market is precipitating job losses and biting cash crunches. The overall decline is affecting crypto assets and firms in various ways. Following the demise of the FTX crypto exchange, many individual and institutional investors suffered massive losses.
Many venture firms that invested in the exchanges have counted their losses, and some have had to announce their withdrawal in order to encourage their users. Furthermore, with FTX’s bankruptcy filing, some affected companies now have little hope of recovering funds trapped on the platform.
Chelsea Deal Over For Now
According to reports, the crypto trading company Amber Group has decided to end its partnership with Chelsea FC. As a result, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency company is terminating its $25 million sponsorship agreement with the football club.
Amber Group is a well-known digital asset management firm in the industry. Its operations are spread across the globe, with offices in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company provides a wide range of digital asset services such as trading, payments, financing, investing, spanning, and others. Temasek and Sequoia Capital are among the investors in the crypto trading firm.
Amber announced its sponsorship agreement with Chelsea about seven months ago, with the agreement set to last for the current 2022/2023 football season. The football club agreed to include the logo of Amber’s WhaleFin trading platform on players’ shirts as part of the agreement. This will was supposed to last until the end of the deal, but it has now been canceled.
Layoffs and Company Restructuring
Amber Group has reportedly laid off 40% of its workforce in addition to terminating its sponsorship deal. The company laid off about 300 workers, leaving less than 400 on its payroll. At its peak, the company had over 1,100 employees under its care.
Amber linked its new staff reduction move to the current bearish trend in the crypto market. Some companies, such as Celsius Network, FTX, and BlockFi, have been swept away by the declining market conditions. Furthermore, the cryptocurrency trading firm is scaling back its retail operations in order to focus on family offices and institutional investors. This new move will reduce its customer base from hundreds of thousands to approximately 100.
According to on-chain analysts, Amber could end up like Alameda Research, the trading platform linked to the defunct FTX exchange. Amber Group has only $9.46 million in assets, according to data from an analyst, crypto sleuth lookonchain.
Annabelle Huang, Managing Partner at Amber Group, refuted the claims about the form. Huang took to Twitter to report that the company is still operating normally and that there are no withdrawal restrictions.
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