Nansen joins the several blockchain analytic firms that have laid off over 5% of employees in 2023.
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Blaming “brutal” conditions in the cryptocurrency market and an overly aggressive expansion , blockchain analytics provider Nansen has laid off 43 employees, or 30% of its staff, the company told Forbes.
“This will allow us to focus on our core products with data, analytics and research,” the company said in an email to Forbes. It plans to focus on an updated Nansen information dashboard (Nansen V2), and Nansen Query, a software that gives customers access to curated and individualized blockchain reports.
Nansen retracted an earlier statement that its marketing and product divisions were the hardest hit by the layoffs. A spokesperson later said by email there “wasn’t anything factual” to suggest those teams were affected more than others. “It was across the board,” the spokesperson added.
Nansen said that in addition to the 43 employees laid off yesterday, other open roles would not be filled. Over 100 employees remain at the company.
Nansen follows blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which cut about 5% of its staff, and crypto intelligence firm Messari, which slashed 15%, both in February.
All of the companies cited tough conditions in the cryptocurrency market, whose value has fallen 14% to $1.18 trillion in the past 12 months, according to data from CoinGecko. Prices are up 30% this year, however, as digital assets recover from the depths of the 2022 downturn.
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Separately, leading crypto exchange Binance told Forbes that it was reevaluating its staffing “to focus talent density across the organization to ensure we remain nimble and dynamic.” Ismael Garcia Makroum Talbi, a Binance spokesperson, was responding by email to a Forbes request for comment on a Twitter posting by journalist Colin Wu that said the company was going to lay off 20% of its workforce.
“This is not a case of rightsizing,” Talbi wrote, “but rather, reevaluating whether we have the right talent and expertise in critical roles, and therefore we will still be seeking to fill hundreds of open roles.
In announcing the Nansen layoffs on Twitter, CEO Alex Svanevik wrote, “Although we’ve seen diversification of revenues via enterprise and institutional customers in the last year, our cost base is too high relative to where the company is today.”
He took responsibility for expanding too far. “We wanted to invest and build in a tough market where others needed to scale back,” leading to “taking on surface area that’s not truly part of Nansen’s core strategy.” But he added that the company has enough funds for “several years” of operations.
Nansen most recently raised $75 million in a series B funding round in December 2021 that valued the company at $750 million, according to data from PitchBook.
This article was updated on May 31 after the company changed its characterization of which workers were affected by the layoff.
