Coinbase freezing hiring & rescinding existing offers as a sign of Crypto Winter? ??; PayPal’s long-awaited crypto feature??; Value in DeFi is falling

???Hey,?Linas here!?Welcome to a????weekly free edition????of my daily newsletter. Each day I focus on 3 stories that are making a difference in the financial technology space. Coupled with things worth watching & most important money movements, it’s the only newsletter you need for all things when Finance meets Tech.

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed this week:

1. Increase your chances of getting funded with this cheat sheet???
2. 1200+ FinTech, Tech & Crypto Talent Ready to Grow Your Business???
3. Value locked in DeFi is falling. What does this tell us about the sector’s health????
4. PayPal’s long-awaited crypto feature???

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Last week (6-10 June) was another hot week in Blockchain & Cryptocurrency space.?Despite I've spent the whole week in Amsterdam????, Crypto wasn't?sleeping. So, in today's issue, we're going to look at Coinbase freezing hiring & rescinding existing offers as a sign of Crypto Winter?; PayPal’s long-awaited crypto feature; falling value locked in DeFi, and other interesting news and developments.

Without further ado, let us dive into what happened in the Blockchain & Crypto sector last week. Let’s connect the dots.

Coinbase freezing hiring & rescinding existing offers as a sign of Crypto Winter? ??

The (sad) pivot ???Hust got hired by Coinbase? Check your mail again to see if that offer still stands. There are high chances that it’s no longer there.

More on this ???The crypto exchange giant Coinbase recently announced it would?rescind some existing offers and freeze hiring?for “as long as necessary.” In doing so, Coinbase reacted to its poor?Q1?showing, which saw the exchange posting a?$430M loss and significantly missing its revenues and earnings targets.

The announcement was an unexpected update on its May plans, which initially had Coinbase only slow down the hiring process.?

The impact??This sums it all up:

?? THE TAKEAWAY

Cost cutting ???Let’s be clear here - hiring freezes & layoffs in the current macro climate are extremely unfortunate but often required. Yet, for Coinbase to send an email saying no offers will be rescinded as part of their hiring freeze and then rescind hundreds of offers 2 weeks later is definitely not how you should do things. More importantly, what really struck me is this - it seems that nobody at Coinbase saw problems on the horizon even as the crypto market steadily cooled for more than 6 months (also, they knew their numbers that were clearly declining). Also, did nobody grasp the?significance of the Fed rate-hike cycle??Zooming out, we can only say that if Crypto Winter is coming, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We can remember that in 2019 when the crypto market collapsed to $100B in December 2018 from nearly $830B at the start of the year, the resulting layoffs were many times worse in percentage terms than the current round, so far. So what we now have is rookie numbers. If crypto winter is coming, it will be much worse.

Continue reading by subscribing to?Linas's Newsletter.?You will receive fresh news about FinTech, Blockchain & Crypto with hot takeaways every day.

Extra Reads & Quick Bites for Curious Minds??

• Japan launch ?????Crypto exchange giant?FTX?has launched its Japanese cryptocurrency trading service called FTX Japan, the company announced on Thursday. FTX Japan is the result of FTX’s prior acquisition of Liquid Group in February. Liquid was the parent company of Quoine Corp., one of the first crypto exchange platforms licensed in Japan in 2017.
• No BTC mining here! ??The New York State Senate passed a bill targeting?proof-of-work?(PoW) mining to address environmental concerns. The bill allows existing mining firms, including ones undergoing the permit renewal process, to continue operations, but any new operations based on carbon energy sources would be barred. Clark Vaccaro, acting president at industry trade organization BaSIC, told CoinDesk that the passage of a moratorium on Bitcoin mining “is a grim day for blockchain technology, effectively shutting the door on a nascent industry.”

Money Moves??

• Request Finance, a Web 3.0 enterprise crypto payments startup, has closed a $5.5M seed round with institutional backers including metaverse company Animoca Brands.
• Algorithm-backed stock advisor?Delphia?has?raised $60M in a Series A?led by Multicoin Capital. The funding will be used to expand headcount and to launch the native Delphia Data rewards token.

Continue reading by subscribing to?Linas's Newsletter.?You will receive fresh news about FinTech, Blockchain & Crypto with hot takeaways every day.

P.S.?You might enjoy my earlier pieces as well:

?? Bitcoin in 2021: a story in 5 graphs, and what might come in 2022

???A Wise pitch deck that led to London’s biggest and most successful direct listing ever

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About: I am?a business developer, sales professional, FinTech strategist, as well as Cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. I'm highly passionate about Financial Technology and Digital Innovation, and strongly believe that it will change the world for the better. Apart from my daily job at a global payments startup where I'm leading the company's expansion into Europe, I'm an active member of the FinTech community and a TechFin evangelist.

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