Many didn’t know what to make of the recent news that Algorand Foundation had laid off 25% of its workforce.
The announced came without any pre-warning - no one had the scoop ahead of time, at least as far as I could tell.
It led to a lot of speculation, but another major announcement the next day likely put that to rest: The Algorand Foundation was now merged with Algorand Technologies.
The fact that the two were split never seemed to make much sense. The Foundation had a technical team that seemed to be making the changes to the protocol.
We have no idea what technologies was actually doing. They’ve been largely silent for years, and was once called Algorand Inc.
And while we got quarterly transparency reports from the foundation, we barely got a tweet from Technologies.
What we don’t know: How much did technologies lay off? How many people were retained by the foundation?
We also don’t know who was cut from the Foundation yet. I see some Algorand people without badges on their X profile, but I don’t know if they had them before.
A good way to know will be to check an updated staff page against a wayback machine version of the same.
But trimming down will be a good thing for Algorand. They’re not alone.
Polygon Labs laid off 30% of its workforce this year. Gemini laid off 25%. Hedera announced layoffs. Crypto.com just announced layoffs too.
That comes as Algorand’s revenue still hasn’t come close to matching the Foundation’s burn rate. And that will force some tough decisions in the near future.
Hopefully this helps bridge the gap a bit.
Top utility crypto news this week
Algorand Foundation announces a 25% workforce reduction in response to challenging macroeconomic conditions and the broader crypto market downturn, while reaffirming its commitment to the long-term development of the protocol and ecosystem. Link: https://x.com/AlgoFoundation/status/2034298850878652616?s=20
Algorand Foundation and Algorand Technologies announce a strategic agreement to unify ecosystem operations under one roof, aiming to strengthen blockchain innovation and financial empowerment initiatives in the United States. Link: https://x.com/AlgoFoundation/status/2034631133816910262?s=20
Polygon ecosystem records 42.3% growth in new users over the past 19 days, showing consistent organic adoption based on practical utility rather than market hype. Link: https://x.com/everstake_pool/status/2034655333713371292?s=20
New SEC guidance classifies Algorand, Hedera, and Chainlink among 16 cryptocurrencies as commodities rather than securities, representing a major regulatory shift from previous enforcement approaches. Link: https://x.com/frugalbc/status/2034241098864877876?s=20
Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager with €2.3 trillion in assets under management, launches a new tokenized mutual fund (SAFO) powered by Chainlink’s infrastructure. Link: https://x.com/chainlink/status/2034541790447972484?s=20
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