Steemit Lays Off 70% of Staff As a Result of Crypto Market Crash

Steemit is removing more than 70 percent of its staff because of the cryptocurrency market crash, and is starting a structural reorganization.

This is according to a video posted by Steemit CEO Ned Scott.

Steemit operates a decentralized application on the Steem blockchain, while its system is founded around community-driven posting, evaluation, and administering of content. Steemit incentivizes participants and content in the so-called “attention economy” with the native token STEEM.

According to the announcement, the recent dip in cryptocurrency markets has led to a reduction in fiat currency returns from the firm’s automated STEEM sales. In addition, the expense of running Steem’s nodes has risen as well.

The cryptocurrency market is going through a massive decline that began on November 14, with Bitcoin (BTC) plunging from its average trading price of around $6,400 to as low as $5,506. Last week, it dropped lower, below $4,000. The dive has signified a new volatility record for markets this year.

After the layoffs, Steemit is emphasizing cost decrease strategies such as “replacing steemd plugins with hivemind, pitchforking Steem to prune the chain state size from 160gb to 0gb, AWS usage projections, DevOps solutions, reduction of Staging and Testing nodes, and eliminating redundancies.”