Foundry, a major mining pool and subsidiary of DCG, has laid off 60% of its employees. These job cuts targeted the company's non-core functions, including the entire hardware team and the potential sale of future mine site operations.
But DCG founder Barry Silbert is also launching a new project, with the Yuma AI Ecosystem Accelerator debuting last week.
Large-scale layoffs at foundries
Foundry, the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool, will lay off 60% of its staff. This news comes from anonymous company sources who spoke to Blockspace. However, the company issued the following statement regarding this matter:
“We recently made the strategic decision to focus Foundry on our core business while supporting the development of DCG’s newest subsidiary. As part of this restructuring, we will reduce Foundry’s workforce. “We made the difficult decision to make this decision, which resulted in layoffs across multiple teams,” Foundry claimed.
This mention of other subsidiaries of Digital Currency Group (DCG) is particularly noteworthy. Foundry is just one of several DCG businesses under founder Barry Silbert, not all of which have experienced similar turmoil. Silbert recently announced the launch of Yuma, an ecosystem accelerator for AI development.
In other words, DCG's problems are not evenly distributed across its various subsidiaries. A little more than a year ago, bankrupt crypto lender Gensys sued its parent company, DCG, over unpaid loans. At this point, DCG also sold CoinDesk, a prominent crypto media publication. Now, it looks like Foundry is going to run into similar troubles.
In early August, Foundry solidified its position as one of the world's largest Bitcoin miners. That and AntPool controlled more than half of the global hash rate. Nevertheless, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin this year has been extremely high, especially after the halving. Mining companies everywhere are facing declining profits.
Bitcoin mining hashrate 2024. Source: Blockchain.com
These job cuts primarily target Foundry's non-core employees. Of the original crew of 250, 20 were reassigned to Yuma and 160 to 170 were laid off.
These include the entire ASIC repair team and hardware team, and mining pool operations will remain intact. Foundry is also considering selling the site operations team that manages Bitcoin mining locations.
Given the company's secrecy regarding these layoffs, it's difficult to judge Foundry's overall health. For example, DCG's letter to shareholders for Q3 2024 claimed that these layoffs are still happening even though Foundry is on pace to generate $80 million in revenue. The world's largest Bitcoin mining pool could go in many different directions in the future.
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