Crypto exchange Kucoin said Tuesday it may cut some staff as part of a regular personnel adjustment, but denied it plans to lay off a large portion of its workforce.
Citing three confirmed but unidentified inside sources, the Twitter news account Wu Blockchain Tweeted The Seychelles-based exchange plans to lay off 30% of its staff due to falling profits after New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued KuCoin in March for violating securities laws by offering tokens including ether. The exchange recently imposed mandatory identity checks on its customers, which Wu Blockchain said cut into profits.
In a statement to CoinDesk, a spokesperson for CuCoin said, “The company has not initiated any of the alleged layoff plans.” However, the spokesperson said, “As part of the company’s business development and semi-annual employee performance reviews, there may be some personal adjustments as needed, which is a normal process in organizational development.”
Kucoin rival Binance has been reported to be cutting a large portion of its workforce in recent weeks, though Binance has denied the numbers are as large as reported. Like KuCoin, Binance said its workforce arrangements are “part of a process to reassess whether we have the right talent and expertise in critical roles,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk earlier this month.