According to a Bloomberg report , Amber Group, a digital asset company that is struggling to cope with the crypto winter, said that it will not pay performance bonuses to employees this year.
The report quoted Amber Group’s internal memo stating that due to slowing business growth and market uncertainty, the company will cancel performance bonuses for 2022.
Since June, Amber Group has launched a series of cost-cutting measures, including layoffs and salary reductions, and some executives have even voluntarily given up all or part of their salaries until there are clear signs of recovery in the market.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Michael Wu, CEO of Amber Group, confirmed that the company will not issue performance bonuses this year and executives will cut salaries. He added that Amber Group will continue to cut expenses in the future.
Blockbuster reported last week that in order to cut operating costs, it plans to reduce the number of employees from 700 to less than 400, and withdraw from the retail business, focusing only on serving large institutions, family offices and high-net-worth clients. Hundreds of thousands down to around 100.
A source familiar with Amber Group’s operations revealed to foreign media that since the company announced in June that it would close certain international businesses, the number of employees in Amber’s US and European offices is currently in single digits. Annabelle Huang, a partner of Amber Group, responded to foreign media and said that its employees in Europe have indeed been reduced to single digits.
In addition to large-scale layoffs, people familiar with the matter also told the media that Amber Group is taking legal procedures to terminate its sponsorship agreement with Chelsea Football Club (Chelsea FC).
After FTX announced its bankruptcy in November this year, it was immediately reported that some employees who were laid off by Amber Group but did not receive proper compensation were seeking to defend their rights. It was also reported that the Chinese office was preparing to withdraw the lease, which made the outside world speculate that Amber Group may be following the chain of currency crises. , another company that is about to fall, but company executives later refuted the rumors on Twitter, emphasizing that Amber Group “everything is operating normally.”
According to the information compiled by the blockers, Amber Group stated in the FTX incident that it has no exposure to Alameda or FTT. In addition, based on strict risk exposure restrictions on individual transactions, Amber Group only has less than 10% of transactions The position is deposited with FTX, “it does not pose a threat to our business operations or liquidity.”
However, foreign media reported earlier this month that Amber Group suspected that it owed approximately US$130 million to Vauld, an encrypted lending platform that had previously filed for bankruptcy protection in Singapore. Vauld disclosed in July filings that the company also had a $130 million loan receivable, which The Block reported was tied to Amber Group.
