On Monday, Foundry, the world's largest bitcoin mining pool, announced a significant reduction in its workforce, laying off approximately 60% of its staff. This decision, confirmed by a Blockspace report, affects both US and international staff, reducing the company's workforce from more than 250 to around 80-90 employees.
Foundry focuses on its core business
Sources familiar with the matter, <a target="_blank" href="https://blockspace.media/insight/bitcoin-mining-pool-foundry-lays-off-60-of-workforce/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>aforementioned by Blockspace, revealed that the layoffs are part of a “strategic initiative” aimed at strengthening Foundry's core revenue-generating operations.
According to a letter to the shareholders of the conglomerate that owns Digital Currency Pool (DCG), Foundry is expected to generate $80 million in revenue from its self-mining business by 2024. A statement from Foundry said:
We recently made the strategic decision to focus Foundry on our core business: operating the world's number one bitcoin mining pool and growing our site operations business, while supporting the development of DCG's newest subsidiaries.
Despite the layoffs, key divisions remain operational. Foundry bitcoin mining poolwhich currently represents 30% of the total hashrate of the bitcoin network, remains its most prominent line of business.
Additionally, the operations of the mining pool, firmware team, and self-mining division are still intact, although the company has laid off all of its hardware and ASIC repair teams.
Layoffs follow Genesis collapse
The layoffs come after a turbulent period for Foundry and its parent company, Digital Currency Group. After the collapse of GenesisThe subsidiary of Barry Silbert's company, Foundry had diversified into several lines of business, including custom hardware and decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Last week, the company also transferred about 20 staff members to a new DCG subsidiary, Yuma, a decentralized artificial intelligence (ai) startup led by DCG and Barry Silbert, who is also the acting CEO of the new company.
Founded in 2017 as part of the Digital Currency Group conglomerate, Foundry has been seen as a pivotal player in bitcoin. mining industrywhich previously offered competitive mining pool fees and even extended 0% fees to its largest customers.
However, the company has faced challenges, including defaults on loans backed by application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that contributed to the mining segment's difficulties.
The recent layoffs mark a critical moment in Foundry's journey, reflecting broader trends within the cryptocurrency space as companies grapple with regulatory pressures and market volatility.
At the time of writing, the market-leading cryptocurrency bitcoin is trading at $95,570, consolidating over the past 10 days below its all-time high of $99,540, which has been elusive since then, preventing the cryptocurrency from reaching the $100,000 milestone.
Currently, btc shows no change from yesterday's price. However, over longer time periods, the cryptocurrency continues to post significant gains, especially in the monthly period where it has increased by almost 40%.
Featured image of DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
