Crypto Unicorn CoinSwitch Lays Off 44 Employees

Crypto unicorn CoinSwitch has laid off 44 employees from its customer support team, or about 7% of its total workforce.

"We continuously evaluate our business to stay competitive, prioritising innovation, value, and service for our customers. To that end, we right-sized our customer support team to align with the present volume of customer queries on our platform," a CoinSwitch spokesperson told BQ Prime.

As compared with the peak of crypto in 2021, customer queries have reduced significantly and hence, the layoffs became necessary, according to a person familiar with the development, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Over the last year, the company said many support team members have been absorbed into other functions based on the suitability of their skills for the other roles.

"As and when volumes grow and we open new roles, we will be happy to welcome back those impacted," the company said, indicating that the layoffs are a result of a broader slump in virtual currencies.

Earlier this month, another cryptocurrency app, CoinDCX, laid off 12% of its workforce, or 71 employees, citing a prolonged bear market for crypto and the impact of TDS on domestic exchanges.

In December last year, CoinSwitch had announced its intention to pivot to offering stock trading, mutual funds, bonds, and other asset classes for users. This was the second major pivot for the company, which started in 2017 as a crypto data search engine.

In an interview with BQ Prime in May this year, Chief Executive Officer Ashish Singhal said CoinSwitch will have "multiple asset classes" on its app by the end of 2023 as it seeks to pivot to a full-stack wealth management app from a pure-play cryptocurrency exchange.