WazirX sacks 40% employees as global downturn hits crypto market

Amid a global economic slowdown, controversy-hit WazirX has reportedly sacked 40% of its workforce. Out of 150 employees, 50-70 have been handed the pink slip, reported CoinDesk citing sources.

The report claimed that sacked workers were given 45 days of salary in severance and were told that they no longer needed to report for work.

"The crypto market has been in the grip of a bear market because of the current global economic slowdown," WazirX was quoted as saying in a statement.

"The Indian crypto industry has had its unique problems with respect to taxes, regulations and banking access. This has lead to a dramatic fall in volumes in all Indian crypto exchanges," it added.

The report quoted the company as saying that it had to reduce its staff in order to be financially stable and to continue serving its customers. The company compared the current downturn in crypto market to that in 2018, adding that the market follows cycles when the bear grip is inevitably followed by a bull run.

Workers across customer care, Human Resources, and other departments got the axe including managers, analysts, associate managers, and team leaders, the CoinDesk report added quoting sources. Entire public policy and communications teams were fired too.

The development comes close on the heels of an investigation by India's financial crimes investigative agency Enforcement Directorate (ED), which froze and later released the company’s bank accounts. In August this year, the ED said it had conducted searches on one of the directors of Zambia Lab Pvt Ltd, which operates WazirX and issued an order to freeze funds amounting to Rs 64.67 crore in various accounts of the company.

The probe was part of ED’s crackdown on 16 fintech companies and illegal loan apps—some of which happened to use WazirX's platform, the company said in an earlier statement.

Indian crypto traders migrated to foreign exchanges after the government imposed a 1% Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) in July leaving WazirX and other Indian cryptocurrency exchanges in a rut. The Nischal Shetty-headed exchange has seen volumes consistently decline from a high of 478 million in October 28, 2021 to 1.5 million in October 2022, as per CoinGecko data.