MetaMask developer Consensys laying off 20% of its workforce

MetaMask developer Consensys is laying off 20% of its workforce.

Consensys founder and CEO Joseph Lubin announced the move on Tuesday in a blog post, citing macroeconomic conditions and regulatory uncertainty.

"To stay competitive, we need to reshape ourselves to be more agile, more effective, and even higher-performing," Lubin said in a post to X. "Today, we are making the tough but prudent decision to streamline our operations to position Consensys for ongoing rapid innovation, long-term sustainability under possibly volatile scenarios, and continued leadership in the web3 space."

While MetaMask is one of the most popular crypto wallets on the market, Consensys has been involved in an ongoing legal conflict with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In September, a U.S. district judge dismissed a case in which Consensys sued the SEC for categorizing ether as a security. The SEC has also sued Consensys over its failure to register as a broker through its MetaMask swaps service.

Laid-off Consensys employees will receive "generous severance packages" and an extended stock options window, according to Tuesday's post.

Last year's lawsuit

Lubin's announcement of layoffs comes a year after former Consensys employees accused the Ethereum cofounder, in a lawsuit, of failing to live up to equity promises made in the company's startup days. According to the lawsuit, when Lubin started Consensys in 2014, many employees worked for less with the understanding they would receive company equity.

"After two years of getting nowhere with their frivolous claims against Consensys Mesh in a Swiss court, plaintiffs now believe their meritless claims stand a better chance of yielding a pay day if they game U.S. courts and entangle Consensys Software and other unrelated parties in litigation,” a Consensys spokesperson told The Block at the time. “We fully expect that the plaintiffs, who were never employees of Consensys Software, will soon find this gambit is another fruitless attempt to enrich themselves from the success of others."

As of last year, Consensys was valued at over $7 billion after raising more than $700 million, according to the lawsuit.