Circle Lays Off 10 More Employees, Rejects Connection To CEO Leaving

The global payments company Circle recently laid off around ten employees after the cryptocurrency news showing that its CEO Sean Neville quit his position. However, events from the firm apparently show that the two cases are unlinked. As Circle lays off 10 more employees, we can see that the company denies the potential connections to the recent case where the CEO left.

A Circle representative recently spoke and told the media, the company has “streamlined some departments and eliminated about 10 roles.” The spokesperson also confirmed that the company was looking to focus on its stablecoin, USDC. Earlier today, we saw that the company minted another $2.8 million of the coin, too.

💵 2,800,000 #USDC (2,809,588 USD) minted at USDC Treasury

Tx: https://t.co/juPvMGZdJ7

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 11, 2019

The news follows the recent transition of the co-founder and co-CEO of Circle, Sean Neville, to a post on the company’s board of directors for January 2020. Still, a Circle representative recently told media that:

“None of this is related to Sean transitioning out of the co-CEO role. Sean will continue to serve on Circle’s board.”

As a reminder, Neville launched Circle with Jeremy Allaire back in 2013. As Circle lays off 10 employees now but has been strong over the years. We can see that they directed many of the changes in the industry in the recent years, including a pivot away from Bitcoin (BTC) as well as the acquisition of the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex back in 2018.

Last month, two former executives at Circle, Daniel Matuszewski and Julien Collard-Seguin along with a third partner founded the proprietary crypto trading firm CMS Holdings. This firm plans to invest 30% of its capital in the most liquid cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and around 40% to 50% into less-traded digital assets.

Matuszewski, who left the company in August, admitted that he would not have started a similar firm a couple of years ago because of risk concerns and explained:

“There was always a non-zero chance that bitcoin would gap down, die, and never come back. […] It’s a lot safer now, in that it’s probably not going to disappear.”