Kyberswap Exploit Fallout: Platform’s Workforce Cut by 50%

The CEO of Kyberswap, the decentralized finance aggregator, revealed on Christmas Day that the platform recently laid off 50% of its workforce. The CEO added his organization is in the process of creating a voluntary database that is expected to help these workers secure new jobs in the Web3 space.

Continuing Impact of the November Security Breach

Victor Tran, the co-founder and CEO of the decentralized finance (defi) platform Kyberswap, announced on Christmas Day that his company has reduced its workforce by 50%. In a post on X, Tran linked the decision to let go of some of its most skilled workers to last month’s security breach, which saw Kyberswap lose assets worth more than $50 million to a cyber-criminal.

As reported by Bitcoin.com News soon after the breach was confirmed, Kyberswap initially said digital assets worth $47 million were unaccounted for. This figure would later rise to more than $50 million, making it one of the biggest security incidents in decentralized finance in November. At the time, the Kyberswap team initially claimed that the incident had not impacted its decentralized exchange aggregator.

Kyberswap later engaged with the hacker(s) who responded by asking management to sell them the platform. The hackers also proposed a twelve-month severance package to Kyberswap employees who agreed to resign. At the time, the hackers’ demands were rebuffed by the Kyberswap team.

Significant Changes to Kyberswap’s Operations

However, in his post on X, Tran neither confirmed nor denied if the worker retrenchments are linked to the hackers’ demands. Instead, the CEO implied that the job cuts were due to Kyberswap’s decision to make users impacted by the breach whole.

“In a move to stand by affected users, we implemented the Kyberswap elastic exploit treasury grant program to cover up to 100% of users’ losses. We have also made significant changes in our business operations to ensure we are well positioned to continue on a sustainable path forward, including temporarily pausing our liquidity protocol initiatives and Kyber AI project,” Tran explained.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Kyberswap revealed that his organization is in the process of creating a voluntary database that can help laid-off workers secure new jobs in the Web3 space. Tran also appealed to other Web3 founders to consider recruiting the departed employees.

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