The cryptocurrency market has not had a good year and there are a number of companies that have been struggling because of the tough conditions. One of these is prominent crypto exchange Gemini, which like a few other companies, had announced that it was letting go of some of its staff. But, in recent days, the crypto market has found itself on the path of recovery and has even crossed the $1 trillion market capitalization mark.
Layoffs continue
Despite the recovery in the crypto market, Gemini has not put a stop to its layoffs, as it is still letting go of its workers. This signals that the financial problems of the company are not over as yet. A source close to the exchange disclosed that the company had fired some more employees. This announcement comes only a month after a previous one of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’s exchange of cutting down their workforce by 10%.
The latest report shows that the exchange has let go off 68 more employees. This makes it about 7% of its total strength of 1,000. The source that disclosed this said that the company was reducing its number of staff as an extreme measure to bring its costs under control.
The bear market
In June, the Gemini exchange started laying off its workers because the crypto bear market had intensified. The previous month saw the crypto market register losses in the double digits, as both Bitcoin and Ethereum came down to lows last recorded in 2020.
But, the last couple of days has seen both cryptocurrencies recover some of their lost values, as Bitcoin reached $22,000 and Ethereum climbed to $1,500. The bear market had driven other companies to let go off their staff as well, along with Gemini.
These included some other leading crypto exchanges, such as Crypto.com and Coinbase, as they also announced their plans to lay off some of their employees.
Gemini’s CFTC case
Financial problems are not the only ones plaguing Gemini because the crypto exchange also had a lawsuit filed against it in June by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The case had been filed in New York’s Southern District Court and the CFTC claimed that the exchange had made misleading and false statements in 2017.
The CFTC alleged that a few meetings between Gemini and the regulatory authority had taken place, but the former had not provided the right facts. Moreover, it said that the crypto exchange had also violated the regulations of the CFTC and others.
The claims of the CFTC are related to a filing for a Bitcoin futures contract that was to be based on the spot price of Bitcoin and was to be auctioned off on Gemini’s platform. The CFTC had been trying to assess if the particular product could be manipulated in any way. It would have become the first crypto futures contract to receive approval, but the regulatory authority claimed that the exchange had given misleading statements.
