Near Foundation, developer of the layer-1 protocol of the same name, has announced that it will lay off 40% of its staff “to optimize operations.”
According to a Jan. 11 announcement, Near's decision to lay off 35 employees in its marketing, business development and community teams came after feedback that the Foundation "was not always as effective as it should be." expectations, sometimes developing too slowly and trying to do too many things at once.”
NEAR Foundation will provide support to furloughed employees to help them find new opportunities in the NEAR ecosystem, the Web3 industry and beyond.
However, despite the layoffs, Near Foundation 's finances remain strong. Currently, its treasury amounts to more than $285 million in fiat, 305 million NEAR tokens (worth more than $1 billion), and $70 million in investments and loans.
“The Foundation has a good foundation to continue supporting the continued growth, development, and further decentralization of Near Protocol and the ecosystem,” CEO Illia Polosukhin wrote.
Also in the announcement, NEAR Foundation said that the NEAR ecosystem in 2023 has achieved significant progress when the NEAR protocol became the convergence of 3 of the top 10 Web3 applications, reaching a record number of users. daily use and strengthen cooperation with the Ethereum community.