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The web3 industry has been navigating a period of significant turbulance since 2022, a trend that extended into 2023 and continues into the current year. Although the magnitude of job losses in 2024 hasn't matched the previous years, notable industry players in the industry have all contributed to the ongoing trend. The pattern of layoffs this year—whether it mimics last year's lull in summer followed by a resurgence in winter—remains to be seen.

Despite a few promising areas, particularly in artificial intelligence and related fields, the tech industry's recovery momentum is sluggish. Many tech firms are shifting from an expansion-focused approach to prioritizing efficiency.

Monitoring these layoffs is crucial for several reasons: it sheds light on how innovation in web3 is being impacted, which companies are under significant strain, and who is might be hiring.

The final count of layoffs for 2023 for the entire tech industry stood at 262,735, as reported by Layoffs.fyi, marking a 59% increase from 2022 according to the tracker's data. The start of 2024 has been challenging, even if the numbers have not yet reached the highs of early 2023.

This specific tracker is dedicated just to the web3 industry. The Metaintro team updates this list on a monthly basis, ensuring it remains a valuable resource for the industry.

Here's what happened:

Web3 Layoff Tracker

March 2024:

• Inscribe.ai laid off 40% of their staff.
• Turnitin, and AI company, laid off staff, citing that it was replacing some of their employees with AI.
• Sorare, the NFT fantasy sports startup, laid off 13% of their staff which impacted 22 employees.

Febuary 2024:

• Nike announced layoffs of 1,500 employees, impacting their NFT/web3 arm.
• EA Sports cut 670 employees due to a strategic shift in their belief of the future of licensed IP.
• Grammarly cut 230 employees as they refocused on bringing AI in to the workplace.
• Polygon Labs laid off 60 employees.

January 2024:

• NEAR Foundation cut 40% of employees.
• Unity laid off 20% of their staff.
• Humane, Sam Altman's recent investment, laid off 4% of their workforce.
• Twitch, which has dabbled in web3 and AI product rollouts, is rumored to be cutting 500 employees.'
• Blackrock, who is leading the group of 12 applicants looking for Bitcoin ETF approval, is laying off 600 employees.

December 2023:

• Blockdaemon reportedly laid off 25% off staff.
• Forkast Labs laid off their editorial staff as part of a merger with CryptoSlam.
• Swyftx cut over 90 employees.

November 2023:

• Ava Labs, the parent company to the Avalanche token, lays off 12% of employees.
• Qredo, the Coinbase-backed startup, cuts workforce by half.
• OpenSea does another round of layoffs in 2023 by cutting 50% of their marketplace staff.
• C3.AI cut staffers across various departments.

October 2023:

• Brave lays off 9% of staff.
• Epic Games lays off staff.
• Roblox cuts 30 team members.
• CertiK cuts 15% of staff, even after raising $150M in fresh capital last year.
• Stack Overflow says 'goodbye' to an undisclosed number of employees.
• Yuga Labs lays off 120 employees as part of a "restructuring".
• Chainalysis reduces 15% of staff.
• Ledger, the French security company, says 'au revoir' to 12% of their employees.
• Coinhouse slashes 15% of workforce citing, 'Reduced Enthusiasm for Web3'
• Chia fired 26 of its 70 employees as a delay comes in going public.

Need a talented web3 individual? Here's a list of employees that were impacted by the layoffs:

If you're actively hiring, this is the list that you need:

• OpenSea alumni
• Hubspot past employees
• Glean AI past employees
• Shopify alumni network
• Dropbox alumni
• Lyft talent directory
• Glassdoor alumni directory
• Olive AI past employees

👇 How to submit a tip about a web3 layoff

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