Another company within the cryptocurrency space has felt the harsh sting of the bear market, with ShapeShift.io, a digital marketplace for Bitcoin and other blockchain tokens, announcing on Tuesday that it has laid off 37 employees.

The news was announced via a tweet from Erik Voorhees, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ShapeShift.io, on Tuesday, which was also accompanied by a blog post on Medium.

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With a heavy heart, today we laid off 37 people. We’ve published a blog on this, also discussing some of our missteps and lessons as a company. “Overcoming ShapeShift’s Crypto Winter and the Path Ahead” by @ShapeShift_io https://t.co/1eNT54eyPp #bitcoin

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) January 8, 2019

“Today, we let 37 employees go, reducing the size of our team by a third. It’s a deep and painful reduction, mirrored across many crypto companies in this latest bear market cycle” Voorhees added.

During 2017, ShapeShift.io had a stellar year, with the company growing by an impressive 3,000 percent. However, with the onset of the crypto bear market for most of 2018, many companies within the sector have fallen on hard times.

“Here’s the lesson we learned: regardless of any particular project’s marketability, they were pulling our attention in too many directions,” Voorhees said.

This lack of direction caused a financial, legal and resource strain on the company. It also diverted attention not only from ShapeShift’s core product but also from its team: “And it was not only the ShapeShift product that was in part neglected, but our own organization: the people, and structure, and communication within our company. Our commitment to “People Building” was insufficient.”

ShapeShift.io Grew too Quickly

The CEO of ShapeShift.io has categorized the company’s mistakes into four parts, starting first by saying that the digital marketplace had people and structural issues – the firm had grown too big too fast. In addition, business was declining thanks to the aggregate market recession and increased competition.

On top of this was a suite of legal and financial issues. In 2018 the company’s balance sheet “returned to Earth” as crypto prices fell dramatically during the year. This caused the firm to look inwardly, to see how it could cut costs, ultimately leading to letting 37 employees go.