The collapse of FTX continues to wreak havoc on the cryptocurrency market and beyond. Amber, the Asian cryptocurrency investment and lending platform, will lay off workers, close operations and end its sponsorship of Chelsea.
Chelsea FC and Amber announced a partnership in May that will include a logo on the shirt sleeves of the British club’s players this season.
At that time, the “sponsorship” agreement was worth 20 million pounds a year (€23.21 million a year at current exchange rates). The company is already taking legal action to terminate the contract.
Those decisions are part of a cost-cutting strategy, according to a source familiar with the process cited by Bloomberg. The company has reduced the number of workers. If some time ago the platform had 1,100 employees, now it has 700 employees, which in turn are reduced to 400 employees.
The strategy will also go through an exit from the retail market, focusing mainly on high net worth investors, institutional and family businesses, which should reduce the “target” of thousands of users only to the limits of hundreds, according to the same line.
The platform will also move to cheaper offices in Hong Kong and encourage remote working, in order to cut costs, and some offices in smaller markets are expected to close.
However, the company’s new plan isn’t new, at least online, it’s already been speculated that Amber will be the next piece to fall on the FTX domino, after some “players” in the sector closed their doors or sought protection against creditors. The speculation even led one of the company’s executives to go quiet on Twitter.
Amber has been through some tough times. In November, one of the platform’s co-founders, Tiantian Colander, passed away at the age of just 30 in his sleep.
The platform was launched in 2018 by a group of people, including Morgan Stanley investors. The company raised $200 million in a private investment round in February, valued at nearly $3 billion. Bloomberg reported this week that the company has halted a new $100 million round.
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