Circle Sheds 10% of Workforce as CEO Blames Restrictive US Regulatory Climate

The CEO of Goldman Sachs-backed crypto finance startup Circle blamed a hostile regulatory climate in the United States as he confirmed layoffs of 30 staff on social media May 21.

Following a blog post in which he described the difficulties operating in the U.S., Jeremy Allaire said that executives had taken the decision to release roughly one in ten of Circle’s employees.

“Today we made organizational changes at Circle and eliminated approximately 30 positions, which is about 10% of our employees,” he wrote. Allaire stated:

“We made these changes in response to new market conditions, most importantly, an increasingly restrictive regulatory climate in the United States.”

As Cointelegraph reported, Allaire had taken aim at the slow progress on unifying the patchwork U.S. regulatory landscape, but remained hopeful that the future would bring improvements.

He made the comments while attempting to explain why Circle had cut off U.S. access to certain trading pairs on Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange the company acquired in 2018.

Announcing the firings, Allaire likewise sought to underscore Circle’s overall health as a company.

“Circle remains strong and healthy, and we will continue to drive new product innovation and growth globally, working with jurisdictions that offer forward-looking policies regulating digital asset businesses, while we press for more balanced crypto policy in the U.S.,” he added.

Crypto outlet The Block also reported that Circle has purportedly lowered its March fundraising goal of $250 million by 40%, citing unnamed sources.

Circle is just the latest industry business to slim down its operations in response to an extremely challenging year.

As Cointelegraph noted, bitcoin (BTC) mining giant Bitmain, blockchain startup ConsenSys and exchange Huobi had previously taken the decision to reduce staff numbers.

Since then, markets have rebounded, with bitcoin (BTC) staying around $8,000 at press time.