Two big cryptocurrency exchanges, Bybit and Huobi, are cutting staff by a third

According to Wu Blockchain, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi will start layoffs, affecting 30% of employees.

“Due to the current market environment, Huobi Global is in the process of reviewing both its hiring policies and its current manpower, with the goal of re-aligning them to its operational needs. Further to such review, layoffs are a possibility,” a company spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Earlier, Bybit also announced a plan to lay off 20% to 30% of its staff. The main reason is the sharp drop in revenue after removing all Chinese users.

In the fall of last year, crypto exchanges began cutting ties with clients from China after the country’s authorities banned mining and any cryptocurrency transactions.

Huobi stopped registering new Chinese users and promised to remove all users in China by the end of 2021. So did Binance, which stopped accepting registrations from users with Chinese phone numbers.

The cryptocurrency market has fallen from $2.9 trillion to $938 billion in the past seven months. Now bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $20,800 after reaching a record high of $68,980 in November. Ethereum (ETH) is now worth about $1,115 after its all-time high of $4,812 last year.