NFT Marketplace SuperRare Reduces its Staff by 30%, Citing Over-Hiring

Crypto firm SuperRare Labs, the company behind the NFT trading platform SuperRare, announced that it would reduce 30% of its workforce. This news follows other companies within the cryptocurrency space that have had to make cutbacks due to the downturn of the market.

According to SuperRare CEO John Crain, the announcement to the staff was sent via Slack on January 6th.

The CEO pointed to excessive growth and over-hiring as the main reason behind the layoffs, emphasizing that he takes “full ownership of this mistake.”

“To correct course, we’ve made the difficult decision to rightsize our team, ensuring that SuperRare Labs will be able to continue serving our community of artists, collectors, and curators while remaining the destination for the best crypto art in the world,” Crain wrote.

SuperRare is an Ethereum-based social network platform for collectors and NFT artists, which made its debut in 2018. A non-fungible token (NFT) is a token on a blockchain network that verifies ownership and authenticity of digital and often physical content. 

In the past few years, SuperRare has been home to a variety of projects from giants in the entertainment and sports industries.

In March 2021, SuperRare secured $9 million through a Series A funding round that was led by Velvet Sea Ventures and cryptocurrency fund 1confirmation, among others. Among the investors were Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, and SamsungNext. Later that year, rapper Snoop Dogg teamed up with mixed media artist Coldie on SuperRare for an NFT collaboration, which was launched on the SuperRare platform. Last May, music legend Madonna teamed up with digital artist Beeple to launch an innovative NFT collection on SuperRare.

Those affected by the layoffs will be assisted by SuperRare in finding new jobs, according to John Crain.

Even though the announcement of the reduction may seem grim for the company, Crain spoke optimistically in his note, stating that Web3 and the digital art sphere will undergo significant transformations in the future.

“We are facing headwinds, yes – but there remains an incredible uncaptured opportunity as we continue building something totally new: a global digital art renaissance that is transparent, fair, and that anyone can access from anywhere in the world,” wrote the CEO.

As 2023 starts, a number of crypto businesses have already begun to announce job cuts due to the prolonged crypto bear market and the contagion from Terra, Three Arrows Capital, and FTX’s collapse in 2022. Among the crypto companies cutting workforce, Silvergate Capital is laying off 40% of its employees, Genesis plans to reduce 30% of its employees, and Huobi is cutting 20%.

However, crypto is not the only industry cutting jobs: more and more tech giants are laying off workers as the US economy continues to struggle.