Swiss-based decentralized trading platform dYdX has announced a 35% reduction in its core workforce.

Platform CEO Antonio Juliano initially shared the news in a brief post on X, calling the decision “sad” while promising to provide more measured reasoning for the action later.

A Leaner dYdX

In the social media post, the CEO stressed that the layoffs were not a financial decision, a point reinforced in a subsequent blog entry titled “Letting Go.” Here, Juliano attributed the departures to the need to create a leaner team to help dYdX achieve its long-term goals:

“Today, I made the incredibly difficult decision to lay off 35% of the dYdX core team. We now have the team we need going forward, but first, we say goodbye to those who have left.”

He also noted that the company had veered off from the original vision that birthed it, and the job cuts were necessary to provide “clarity” and “renewed passion” to the project.

The post did not explicitly state who among the dYdX team was being let go. The companys official website indicates that it has about 50 employees, many of whom come from major tech backgrounds, including Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

Also, despite the terminations, dYdX is hiring for several roles, including lead trading infrastructure engineer, senior product designer, and several software engineer positions.

The project has been around for seven years, and as recently as 2023, it was on Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces list.

Departures Coincide With CEO’s Return

The workforce reduction comes just over a week after Juliano returned to the dYdX leadership following a six-month hiatus. On his comeback, he declared that he would go into “Founder Mode” to run the decentralized outfit personally.

He cited the platform’s challenging year, where it endured a tough market exacerbated by stiff competition, making it necessary for him to return and “revitalize” it.

The company has faced competition from projects such as Hyperliquid, which has rapidly expanded its market presence in the last few months. According to DefiLlama, its current total value locked (TVL) stands at $859.29 million, whereas dYdX’s is at $287.61 million, a more than 50% plunge from its highest level of the year attained in March.

Incidentally, the redundancies have also come just as ConsenSys announced a 20% reduction in its own workforce. However, the MetaMask creator claimed its decision was driven by the ongoing regulatory climate, particularly the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s policies, which it argued are hindering innovation in the crypto space.