According to a report from Coindesk, China-based cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain is undergoing a series of business changes that extend even to its China offices.
Bitmain is well known for manufacturing the vast majority of all ASIC mining devices. It produces several lines of cryptocurrency mining hardware that are designed to target different types of cryptocurrencies including most of the popular mining algorithms.
Source: Bitmain
In a statement given to Coindesk, a Bitmain representative said:
“There has been some adjustment to our staff this year as we continue to build a long-term, sustainable and scalable business. A part of that is having to really focus on things that are core to that mission and not things that are auxiliary,”
An employee from Bitmain’s China offices confirmed to Coindesk the mining giant is indeed undergoing layoff at the moment. However, the source said it’s unclear how many people have been impacted so far and was not able to verify the rumors of fifty percent layoff.
“
But the whole thing certainly couldn’t be handled in just one day given the total number could be large,” the source
said “
This is an operational adjustment. Some projects will be entirely gone so it’s hard to calculate a precise percentage at this stage. Bitmain’s core business is making miners. Other business lines are just blockchain and artificial intelligence. There’s also some adjustment on the mining equipment business line. For the firm as a whole, it’s going to reduce redundancy to increase operational efficiency."
The source also explained, even if there was not declining cryptocurrency market this year, it was inevitable that there would be layoffs at some point due to very rapid growth in employee count that Bitmain experienced during the year.