Robinhood lays off quarter of its workforce amid 75% dip in digital currency revenue

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Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOD) has announced its second round of layoffs this year, slashing close to a quarter of its headcount. The stock and digital asset trading platform is laying off almost 800 employees at a time when its digital currency revenue has dipped by 75%.

In a blog post, CEO Vlad Tenev revealed that the company was laying off 23% of its staff. While almost every department was affected, the layoffs most impacted the marketing, operations, and program management functions of the Menlo Park, California-based firm.

This is the second time that Robinhood has laid off employees this year. In April, the company gave the pink slip to around 300 employees, representing 9% of its workforce at the time.

Tenev attributes the latest layoffs to “additional deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash.” These conditions, he says, have reduced customer trading activity as well as assets under custody.

Robinhood also continued to hire aggressively since last year under the assumption that the unusually-high trading volume that the platform witnessed during the meme-stock mania would continue this year.

“As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory – this is on me,” Tenev remarked.

Employees who were laid off will remain on the payroll until October 1, receiving their regular pay and other benefits during that time. They will also be offered cash severance and job assistance which will set the company back about $40 million.

The layoffs came on the same day Robinhood announced a 44% slump in its revenue for the second quarter of the year. While its net loss of $295 million was lower than projected by analysts, the company saw its transaction-based revenue across digital assets, options, and equities dip by 55% on average. Its digital asset business was the worst hit, with a 75% drop in revenue. Further, its active user count dropped by 2 million as assets under custody dipped by 31%.

Compounding the problems, Robinhood announced that its digital assets arm had been fined $30 million by the New York Department of Financial Services.

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