FTX Tremors Spur Australian Crypto Exchange Swyftx to Lay Off 35% of Staff

Suvashree Ghosh, Bloomberg News

A Swyftx Pty promotional sign at the Australian Crpyto Convention in Gold Coast, Australia, on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. The convention runs through Sept. 18, 2022. Photographer: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Australian crypto exchange Swyftx laid off 35% of employees as the crisis sparked by FTX’s implosion further dims the sector’s outlook.

The firm let go 90 of 259 people, a step taken “in expectation of a potentially sharp fall in global trade volumes in the first half of 2023 and further aftershocks from FTX’s collapse,” a Swyftx spokesperson said Monday.

Chief Executive Officer Alex Harper flagged the potential for more “black swan-type events” in a message to staff seen by Bloomberg News. Swyftx had already laid off about a fifth of its workforce in August.

Investors have fled the crypto sector after a yearlong rout and a series of blowups, most recently the wipeout of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire. Platforms around the world such as Crypto.com, Kraken and Bybit have cut staffing levels in response to the downturn.

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