Chia Network Lays Off Third of Its Staff as Loss of Banker Delayed Going Public
Chia Network cut more than a third of its workforce today as the blockchain platform sought to reestablish a lost banking relationship, the company told CoinDesk, further delaying what Chia had hoped would be a rapid path to listing as a public company.
The open-source software business, which had prided itself on seeking a U.S.-compliant route to establishing its listing on a U.S. exchange, informed 26 of its 70 employees today that their jobs were ending. That move comes five months after Chia, which was founded by BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to start its process to go public – a situation partially derailed by the collapse of its bank, Credit Suisse.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to lose some great people as we’ve endured a challenging funding environment over the past several months,” said Chia CEO Gene Hoffman, who said the layoffs are focused more on “ecosystem support” than sales and marketing. “It was a difficult decision to give the company the runway it needs.”
While the crypto company slashes its staff, it’s also looking to sell from its stockpile of its own token, XCH, Hoffman said. That mountain of 21 million XCH represents almost three quarters of the supply of those coins, with nearly 9 million in current circulation, but Hoffman said the company would only unload a limited amount as a backup source of funding on the runway to its initial public offering (IPO).
“Certainly, we’re not going to be selling even a material amount,” Hoffman told CoinDesk in an interview.