No doubt Ethereum (ETH) is a hardcore crypto asset that’s not to be messed with. It’s the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and it holds its ground over the likes of Ripple (XRP), bitcoin cash (BCH), EOS (EOS) and Litecoin (LTC).
Ethereum Still Has Some Issues
But even top products and companies appear to suffer from time to time, and Ethereum is no exception. The company recently announced that it was having to cancel out several jobs in both the Philippines and India. While it’s not Ethereum directly that’s suffering from this blow, ConsenSys – a subsidiary of Ethereum – will deal with the job losses and experience the process of “downsizing” in Asia.
People set to be losing their jobs were informed by email from Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, who also serves as the chief executive of ConsenSys. Spokesperson Kara Miley explained in an interview:
A total of 11 roles were eliminated in India and the Philippines due to a realignment of the sales and services team in those countries.
No further details are available at the time of writing.
While this isn’t the first time ConsenSys has laid off staff members, the team players in both the Philippines and India were known to have been working on very high-profile projects, and it’s unclear why their services were no longer deemed necessary.
In India, employees were allegedly working on decentralization initiatives set for the healthcare industry and the development of land titles. In addition, they were also looking to build an Ethereum-based education system designed to push coding knowledge amongst students.
In the Philippines, team members were believed to be partnered with Union Bank and establishing a new form of blockchain-based banking called Project i2i.
ConsenSys has been laying off staff members since late 2018, likely due to the faltering price of Ethereum. At that time, the company employed roughly 1,200 people, though that figure has since fallen by roughly 200.
Selling Things Behind Our Backs?
In addition, Ethereum is taking a lot of flack as Vitalik Buterin – the co-creator of the now popular cryptocurrency – revealed in a recent podcast interview that he and various chief executives had sold several ether tokens during the early days of the company to ensure its survival. This wouldn’t be so bad except many experts and early investors are claiming that Buterin and his team were not entirely honest with shareholders in that this data was never disclosed to them firsthand.
Earlier this year, Buterin also claimed that Ethereum was no longer scalable due to the high levels of congestion and traffic its blockchain was experiencing. Many decentralized applications and new tokens were being built atop the Ethereum blockchain, resulting in high gas fees and very slow transaction times. At nearly five years old, it seems ETH is now suffering from many of BTC’s issues.