Ethereum browser startup Status.IM cuts a quarter of its workforce as cryptocurrency prices continue to decline. Co-founder Jarrad Hope informed the decision through an internal circular, saying that the start-up is much bigger than can be supported because the company did not expect Ether’s prices to fall by more than 80%.
COO Nabil Naghdy was the first one to openly confirm the layoffs. The company initially raised ETH 182,000 through a token sale last year, valued at that time at $64 million (current prices are approximately $ 15.5 million in the same amount of ether). Status.IM also had “solid banking partners” only in the Q2 2018, which aggravated the crisis.
As a consequence, Status.IM cut 25% of its workforce, which amounts to nearly 25 people. According to Hope, Those laid off are believed to be “non- essential” to the project’s long- term goals.
The company plans to broaden its fiat currency holdings to include its expenses for another six months. Status also requires present workforce to agree to wage cuts that “mitigate as the market picks up,” said Hope. Employees are then given more SNT tokens “to help offset the cut.”
Still, this may not be enough, as Hope went on to explain:
“The reality is that we will have to make another assessment end of Q2 which if the market hasn’t picked up we will be forced to make the organization even leaner, and the remaining fiat and our large ETH holdings will be used to create a runway measured in years.”
The start- up’s needs over the subsequent months are to deliver on its White Paper guarantees and “get the app into a usable state,” he wrote.
Naghdy told that despite the cuts, “we continue to have a large and stable engineering team” working on both the promises of the White Paper and the implementation of ethereum 2.0 dubbed Nimbus.
Apart from fiat holdings, Status has about 190,000 ETH to be used as a resource, said Naghdy. The six-month runway of the company is based solely on fiat holdings and the company has no current plans for further fundraising.
