Singapore-based digital asset manager Amber Group has cut its Hong Kong staff by half, from 80 to 40 people, as it tries to weather the current slump in crypto prices and a number of bankruptcies in the industry.
According to a report by the South China Morning Post, Amber has cut its compliance workforce in Hong Kong to just five people from 20, and made its entire auditing team redundant.
The report also states that payments to many of the company’s third-party vendors have been delayed, in some cases by up to six months.
Amber was founded in 2017 in Hong Kong, but later moved its head office to Singapore, it became a unicorn in June 2021, a privately-owned startup with a valuation of over $1 billion, after closing a $100 million Series B fundraising round and stating plans to go public within a few years.
The digital asset industry has been hit hard by a number of bankruptcies in recent months, such as Bahamas-based FTX cryptocurrency exchange, BlockFi Inc., Hong Kong-based AAX, and the recent reports of U.S.-based crypto lender Genesis preparing to file for bankruptcy.
