January 09, 2019 — shinohai

Shitcoin exchange shapeshift.io announced that it is "laying off" 37 people, or around a third of its workforce. CEO Erik Voorhees wrote in a medium post that there were multiple factors included in this decision, though he may use some terms unfamiliar to readers. We will attempt to translate a few below.

According to Voorhees:

ShapeShift diversified its product line too early and in too many verticals, resulting in financial, legal, and time costs.

Translation: "We added support for just about every shitcoin imaginable and are surprised at the result."

We had customer issues. Business was declining from both aggregate market recession and increased competition. Our imposition of KYC?d accounts, themselves the result of trying to be cautious in a challenging regulatory environment, caused many of our most valuable API partners to leave us for competitors who have not perceived regulatory risks in the same way. We expected it, but still, it stung both financially and psychologically.

Translation: "We decided to capitulate to fiat demands and are surprised at the result."

2018 marked a rough year. While this new one starts upon some painful reorganization, we?re encouraged and hopeful for 2019.

Translation: "We lost so much money in 2018 we had to fire people but are still hopeful that *someone* out there that will continue to buy our shitcoin bags in 2019."

...and so on.

Headlines such as these have been trending lately, likely Festivus miracles that began with similar announcements by Coinbase, Steemit, Bitmain, and others. Other manifestations of miracles were reported by Qntra this month, where it was noted that mETH addicts were experiencing a chain reorganization with predictable results.

Tags: News, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Lulz