[HN Gopher] Crypto firm Bitpanda lays off around 20% of its people
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Crypto firm Bitpanda lays off around 20% of its people
Author : brunojppb
Score : 96 points
Date : 2022-06-24 19:07 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.bitpanda.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.bitpanda.com)
| jeffwask wrote:
| Is it irony when you name yourself after an endangered species
| and then your product becomes an endangered species?
| themitigating wrote:
| Giant pandas no longer endangered but still vulnerable, says
| China https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472
| tyrfing wrote:
| 550 million raised, last round series C in Aug '21.
| nikanj wrote:
| I wonder how much of that was put into BTC. Might only be worth
| $150 million now
| gitfan86 wrote:
| The smart money doesn't hold any crypto and instead take
| advantage of the lack of regulations to arbitrage and front
| run traders and speculators.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Good. There needs to be more of these layoffs in the crypto
| casino sector. Hopefully in the next coming years, all crypto
| firms should go bankrupt and disappear.
|
| These exchanges and crypto companies need to stop encouraging
| customers to buy and gamble their savings and college funds into
| the crypto pyramid scheme.
|
| This needs to end.
| melenaboija wrote:
| > "...crypto casino sector"
|
| I would not call it casino. Casinos go through regulated
| scrutiny to test the games probabilities are accurate so you
| play against math, crypto is a an unregulated market so you
| (probably) play against or benefit of market inefficiencies.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Casinos go through regulated scrutiny to test the games
| probabilities are accurate so you play against math
|
| That's only for physical games/machines, right?
| melenaboija wrote:
| I had in mind physical casinos so I would say yes but
| testing also depends on each country regulations. If I
| recall properly (I worked in the testing industry long time
| ago and with slot machines) the problem with online games
| for my country at that time was that there was some
| confusion on which regulation to apply for them as games
| where not played where they were hosted.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| At the end of a casino the chips can always be redeemed.
|
| There is very little liquidity in crypto. And when one of the
| whales breaks rank and heads for the exit every other holder
| will be sitting on chips with some nominal value but
| absolutely no buyers.
| melenaboija wrote:
| Casinos are not just games where chips are exchanged
| between players and what is regulated is not how you play
| (casinos per se may do that, I don't know) but that the
| game is fair and you can make informed decisions, ie in
| card games that all players have the same information which
| means the decks are not marked, contain a known
| distribution of cards,... That does not happen in
| inefficient markets.
| timcavel wrote:
| chollida1 wrote:
| Google, amazon, yahoo and Microsoft all benefited greatly from
| the early 2000 tech crash in that they had a lot of cash and were
| able to hire alot of really good tech talent that was suddenly
| out of a job.
|
| Looks like FTX and Binance are about to leave their competition
| in the dust in this crypto winter.
|
| Coinbase seems to have thrown in the towel for now. I would have
| thought they would see this as an opportunity but their fiscal
| situation must be alot worse than they are letting on. Which is
| strange because I would have thought they were better capitalized
| that they are letting on.
|
| We're watching as closely as we can to see if they have alot of
| bad loans outstanding to failing firms.
|
| With Voyager about to go under, Celsius just hiring a firm to
| guide them through bankruptcy and several other minor firms
| already going under there will be no shortage of tech talent
| available to well run firms.
|
| When we come out of this downturn in a year or two FTX and
| Binance are going to be even larger giants than they are now.
| With no real government oversite over those firms to limit their
| growth, the next crypto crash could be because one of those two
| gets into trouble.
|
| Another dark horse candidate is Goldman Sachs, they are well
| capitalized. Look for them to start to buy up distressed crypto
| assets and go into the next bull market in(probably 2024) as a
| big crypto player for institutional clients, and possibly for
| retail under their Marcus brand.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > yahoo and Microsoft
|
| Those two stagnated (at best) in the aughts. Google was taking
| Yahoo's lunch, and Microsoft had no web vision and was tied up
| in antitrust headaches.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| FTX and Binanace will win because they actually invested in
| infra and efficiency when building out their products during
| the good times. They'll reap outsized benefits during the
| downturn.
| ditonal wrote:
| Coinbase way, way overhired and way overpaid for a weak senior
| leadership team. I'm not a fan personally of Brian Armstrong or
| Sam Bankman but the difference in leadership skill is night and
| day. Armstrong was in the right place at the right time
| following the Mt Gox collapse but he's clearly in way over his
| head now, but he got his money so I doubt cares.
| puranjay wrote:
| Coinbase is being very poorly led. They haven't innovated at
| all and they're confused as to who their target customers are.
| The brief mainstream retail rush has thrown them off.
|
| The target customers for crypto are other investors, degens,
| and gamblers. Most of the money in crypto is house money, i.e.
| money that was made from existing crypto investments. Just see
| the transaction volume on OpenSea (decentralized ETH house
| money) vs CoinBase's NFT marketplace. Retail neither cares nor
| has the money for shitty jpegs.
|
| FTX understands the target market. Which is why it has focused
| so aggressively on futures. You can short/long practically
| everything on FTX with leverage. That's the
| investor/degen/gambler class - the bulk of money in crypto.
|
| Binance doesn't do anything extremely well, but whatever it
| does, it simply works. Withdrawals work, support is clumsy but
| works, perps work, spot trading works, even their awful chain,
| as full of scams as it might be, _works_.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Do they need to hire lot of people? Or should they try to run
| it as lean profitable business? The big players are in multiple
| things, but I'm not entirely sure that really makes sense for
| everyone.
|
| Will be actually see end of growing head counts for sake of
| growing them soon?
| glenngillen wrote:
| Founder of FTX has publicly said he thinks most tech
| companies have way too many staff (by a couple of order of
| magnitude I think he said?). FTX has something like 30
| people, and that's how he likes it.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| Coinbase is probably exposed about as much to retail as
| Robinhood is, and judging by Robinhood's monthly trading
| volumes [1] which are down anywhere from 60-95% depending on
| your reference point, Coinbase revenues have probably dropped
| off a cliff.
|
| [1]
| https://s28.q4cdn.com/948876185/files/doc_downloads/2022/06/...
| fooobar124 wrote:
| Retail trading in crypto is down ~90-95% at the moment.
|
| Source: know several of the largest market makers on the big
| retail exchanges.
| hrgiger wrote:
| I skipped binance interview in the past when there was no
| crisis, their assignment:
|
| Design and code a Content Management System (CMS) for Binance.
| The CMS would used to post articles for the public. The current
| Binance site supports up to 17 different languages. Each
| article would have some translations but not all articles have
| all of the 17 translations. Design and code a RESTful API for
| the CMS.
|
| The user of the CMS would need to input the different
| translations for the same article. Design a user interface to
| facilitate this. We would only be looking at the
| functionalities of the user interface, so do not spend too much
| time on the design aspects.
|
| Derive your own data model as deem fit. The preferred language
| for backend is Java and frontend is JavaScript though you are
| free to choose any other languages as well as frameworks.
|
| Submit the code as a GitHub repository and make sure that the
| GitHub repository is public. Remember to add a README file for
| instructions on how to run the application and explanations (if
| any).
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's beyond despicable and should take this company of the
| list of companies to be hired by for any self respecting
| prospective employee. Utterly ridiculous.
| Animats wrote:
| This was for a _job interview_? They wanted you to write an
| entire content management system for them? For free?
| hrgiger wrote:
| Yep , didnt even answer, I had similar interviews solving
| company problems but that one takes the lead, I still keep
| the email, hope someone from their team will read so they
| can re-calibrate their view
| latchkey wrote:
| https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/1539363132593819648
|
| interviewer: if you can explain what deadlocks are, I'll hire
| you
|
| me: hire me, and I'll explain deadlocks
| ralston3 wrote:
| Wow. They really weren't trying to hide the fact that (1)
| They were actively building a CMS in-house at the time, and
| (2) They thought they did such a good job building said CMS,
| that they'd check your work vs their own no doubt
| stunning/transformative in-house work. XD
| roflulz wrote:
| with Django (or other heavy opinionated frameworks targeting
| a CMS system), this seems like a ~3 hour project for a basic
| CMS.
| pluc wrote:
| curl -X POST https://login.wordpress.org/register --data 'use
| r_login=binancecms&user_email=contact@binance.com&terms_of_se
| rvices=1618205211&user_mailinglist=false'
|
| thank you come again
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This brought me a desperately needed laugh today. Please
| put something in your HN profile so I can send coffee/beer
| money (buymeacoffee.com, etc).
| pluc wrote:
| Having a sale on laughs today; this one is on the house
| jacquesm wrote:
| These ones.
| nikanj wrote:
| Possibly they were stupid enough to get high on their own
| supply, and kept operating capital in cryptos instead of USD.
|
| I would be terrified too, if my business lost over 50% of it's
| cash reserves. Or rather they still have the BTC, but it's
| worth one third of peak
| Animats wrote:
| _Possibly they were stupid enough to get high on their own
| supply, and kept operating capital in cryptos instead of
| USD._
|
| This is a classic mistake of banks. When allowed to do so,
| they think they can improve their returns by running trading
| desks. That's why we in the US used to have Glass-Stegall,
| which kept banks and brokerages separate. Because, before and
| after Glass-Stegall, banks got into trouble that way.
|
| Nobody runs a pure crypto exchange that doesn't trade for
| their own account. Crypto exchanges are depository
| institutions, asset custodians, brokers, lenders, market
| makers, and exchanges. All those customer assets, just
| waiting to be exploited.
| Animats wrote:
| Unclear. The whole crypto boom may have been an artifact of low
| interest rates. The junk bond part ("staking", etc.) definitely
| was.
|
| As I point out occasionally, most retail financial scams
| appeared in the 17th through 19th centuries, as newspapers made
| it possible to reach large numbers of suckers. There's not much
| innovation. Most of crypto is the same old scams, repackaged.
| Look up "bucket shop", "blind pool", "tulip mania",
| "Mississippi bubble", "Florida real estate scam", and "high
| yield investment program". Those alone cover most of crypto.
|
| There have been overhyped tech booms many times in history, but
| most actually _did_ something, such as build canals or
| railroads or electric utilities or networks. The crypto
| community has accomplished very little in the real world.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"The junk bond part ("staking", etc.) definitely was."
|
| Might you or someone else explain what staking is? Is this an
| overloaded term in crypto? I know that there is proof of
| stake that is used for consensus but I'm guessing this is not
| the same thing? Is staking a Defi offering?
| Animats wrote:
| "All you need to know about crypto staking"[1]
|
| That's what they tell the suckers.
|
| [1] https://hitbtc.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-
| crypto-st...
| [deleted]
| imustbeevil wrote:
| "Staking" means locking your coins on a platform for some
| period of time (like a year). So, Tera or Celsius offer 20%
| APY for locking your coins there for a year, then when
| everything tanks and they go bankrupt everyone who locked
| their coins there loses everything. It's a "junk bond"
| because the idea is that you only get paid at the end of
| the term, and at that point the bond is statistically
| unlikely to pay out.
|
| Like most financial schemes, it really has nothing to do
| with the crypto, other than that it would be illegal to
| operate platforms like this with real money, since we
| created regulations _decades ago_ to protect people from
| this.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Thanks these are helpful in understand that PoS the
| consensus enables the the financial instrument known as
| "staking."
|
| Would the following be a correct summary then?
|
| By holding more tokens you become a preferable verifier
| node because you hold more tokens. And the way you hold
| more tokens and burnish your reputation as a verifier is
| by borrowing those assets from the actual owners and then
| paying the asset owners double digit interest? Is this
| correct? The idea is that you will make enough in
| transaction fees on the network to payout something like
| 18% interest to asset owner and still make a profit?
|
| If so this seems wildly circular.
| ditonal wrote:
| The person who replied to you originally is confused.
|
| "Staking" originally meant participating in a proof-of-
| stake consensus and you get rewarded by the network with
| the new blocks that are mined.
|
| All the Terra / Luna / NFT / exchange "staking" was
| people latching onto DPoS to make their schemes sound
| more technologically sound. Its an overloaded term at
| this point thats nearing meaningless unless you are clear
| you mean actual proof-of-stake.
| [deleted]
| ditonal wrote:
| This is not accurate, but the problem is that staking got
| way overloaded.
|
| Staking should mean partcipating in a proof-of-stake
| network by using your stake to participate in block
| validation or delegating to someone else. In most cases
| you don't need to lock anything and at no point do you
| hand control of your funds to someone else.
|
| The problem is that many grifters then came to use
| "staking" to mean all sorts of different things with the
| only thing being in common is, get some rewards. But I've
| seen things like BlockFi get described as "staking" when
| really its just giving your money to control of someone
| else and earning interest on it.
| imustbeevil wrote:
| Since I don't want to respond to all of the cryptos
| misunderstanding what staking means, you can also just
| google it:
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/learn/crypto-staking-101-what-
| is-st...
|
| > Similarly, when you stake your digital assets, you lock
| up the coins in order to participate in running the
| blockchain and maintaining its security. In exchange for
| that, you earn rewards calculated in percentage yields.
| These returns are typically much higher than any interest
| rate offered by banks.
| vba616 wrote:
| I'm surprised you compare it to a junk bond.
|
| It sounds pretty much like a CD aka "Certificate of
| Deposit" which is a product sold by banks.
|
| Is there an entire generation that doesn't know anyone
| who ever bought a CD from a bank?
|
| These days they are a joke, but still shown on bank web
| pages.
|
| Here is the list of rates from a regional bank near me:
| 5 Year CD 0.10% 4 Year CD 0.10% 3 Year CD
| 0.10% 2 Year CD 0.10% 18 Month CD 0.10%
| 12 Month CD 0.10%
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| CDs are FDIC insured. If the bank goes under, you keep
| your funds (up to the insurance limit). Staked
| cryptocurrency accounts don't enjoy that benefit, as many
| people are now learning.
|
| I'd also recommend anyone shop around for CD rates. Those
| are hardly representative of what you can get at, say,
| Ally. (2.75% APY on a 5 year)
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The crypto boom was a gold rush for the permanently online
| generation.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| These booms have happened before, complete with distributed
| finance boom and bust cycle, exploitative rugpull projects,
| and community mania. They just get a little bit bigger each
| time.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > Look for them to start to buy up distressed crypto assets
|
| What makes you think they're interested at all?
| jacquesm wrote:
| > When we come out of this downturn in a year or two
|
| That's a pretty big assumption right there.
| rvz wrote:
| This goes in line with the same rule that 90% of these startups
| like this one will fail. As for crypto projects, the same is
| true, that 90% of them will also fail and like the survivors of
| the dotcom crash, only a few of them will also survive.
|
| So the anti-crypto and pro-crypto maximalists are going to be
| both disappointed.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| A single data point doesn't give you any information about how
| much of the industry will fail. "Goes in line" --- yeah,
| because absolutely anything would fit.
|
| "This is good for bitcoin"
| rvz wrote:
| That is assuming you have been paying attention to the recent
| crypto crash, which is affecting the majority of crypto-
| related companies and projects from DAOs to exchanges. So it
| is hardly a single data point.
|
| > "This is good for bitcoin"
|
| And who said that?
| mathverse wrote:
| Bitpanda was hiring like crazy before the crypto burst. They were
| scaling for infinite growth i guess because laying off 20%
| workforce sounds crazy.
| franze wrote:
| I wonder if they will survive. They hired like crazy here in
| Vienna. Lots of good people which started to work there are now 2
| years later at other companies.
|
| I tried to sign up for their service 2 times. Both time it did
| not work. One time even after the success message after the video
| verification.
|
| Still getting Newsletters which seems to get more and more
| irregular.
|
| Well, we will see. Maybe cutting down will solve it for them in
| the long term.
| puranjay wrote:
| There is no real retail demand for crypto. Happens every
| bullrun. Retail comes in, gets a heady rush as their $5,000
| becomes $20,000 (on paper) practically overnight. So they fomo
| in more and keep holding through the top before cashing out for
| less than their initial. 90% swear off crypto and never come
| back.
|
| You can't have retail demand for something that's only meant to
| go up and do nothing else. There are no "normal" users buying
| NFTs because they love the art, or buying ETH because they want
| to use it to get overcollateralized loans on AAVE (when they
| can get undercollateralized loans for cheaper).
|
| I can't understand how VCs wouldn't get something every crypto
| degen instinctively knows after a single bullrun.
| hrnn wrote:
| Didn't they or someone on their behalf even brag a few days ago
| about the fact they weren't firing anyone and other crypto
| companies did? I'm pretty certain there was a LinkedIn post
| about it.
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