Sky Mavis, developer of Web3 game Axie Infinity, cuts staff by a fifth

Sky Mavis, the Web3 gaming company behind Axie Infinity, laid off 21% of its staff last week.

Trung Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of the web3 company, told X on Saturday that the layoffs were not related to the company’s budget or financial health.

“Instead, it is a strategic move that will sharpen our focus and position Sky Mavis for hyper-rapid growth beyond 2025,” he said.

The move comes despite this being a “valuable year of growth and evolution,” according to Nguyen. Going forward, he said, the company will focus on its core products rather than trying to create products for all users. web3 creators will focus on Ronin Wallet and Waypoint, Mavis Marketplace, Axie Infinity, Web3 game publishing, and expand the Ronin network for more builders. A new Axie game is also in development.

2023 co-founder Aleksander Larsen told Finoverse that the company has 250 employees at its headquarters in Singapore and subsidiaries in Vietnam, the United States and Norway. Sky Mavis did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for a total number of people or how many people were affected.

Several cryptocurrency companies have announced layoffs over the past month, despite Bitcoin hitting record highs in the past few weeks and the prospect of a more streamlined regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies in the United States following Donald Trump’s re-election. Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken laid off 400 employees, or 30% of its staff, on October 31, according to tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.

DYDX also reduced its workforce by 25% at the end of last month, and ConsenSys also laid off an additional 20%, or 162 people. Cuts were also made this year by Matter Labs, Polygon, Fireblocks, Sorare, Moonpay, Paxos and several other companies.