Coinfloor, UK’s first crypto exchange, lays off staff: report

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Coinfloor, the UK’s oldest cryptocurrency exchange, is to lay off staff following the announcement of a slew of redundancies at the firm this week, Financial News reported.

Founded in 2013, Coinfloor is considered to be the first cryptocurrency exchange to setup in the UK. Focused on institutional and larger investors, the platform currently enjoys daily trading volumes in the region of $1 million.

However, according to informed sources, the exchange is now turning to significant redundancies amongst its 40 strong team, as part of a wider essential restructuring of their business.

Coinfloor CEO Obi Nwosu was quoted by the news outlet as saying the move has been prompted by changes in trading volumes at the exchange over recent months. He confirmed to Financial News, “Coinfloor is currently undergoing a business restructure to focus on our competitive advantages in the marketplace and to best serve our clients. As part of this restructure, we are making some staff changes and redundancies.”

The news comes at a time of increasing difficulties for some notable cryptocurrency exchanges, following the bear market conditions that have prevailed through much of 2018 so far.

In the last few weeks, similar rumours had emerged from Kraken, suggesting they too were laying off staff, with their offices in Halifax, Canada, earmarked for closure.

However, the firm subsequently denied this was the case, issuing an unequivocal statement that they “can confirm that we are not shutting down any operations in any specific place.”

Much of the difficulties can be attributed to the plummeting price of BTC, dramatically down on its highs of nearly $20,000 in late 2017. According to a growing number of crypto analysts, it looks unlikely BTC will even nearly recover this lost ground any time soon, if ever.

According to Nwosu, Coinfloor has handled as much as $1 billion in BTC transactions over the last 12 months—perhaps indicative of the current extent of their apparent problems.

While it remains to be seen whether the rumours of job losses are confirmed, the news is further confirmation of the dwindling relevance of the old BTC coin in today’s cryptocurrency ecosystem.