Kyber Lays Off Staff to Fund Hack Victim Payouts

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Kyber has been forced to halve its workforce to repay victims of November’s hack
The company was faced with complying to outlandish demands or face the loss of $46 million
Kyber opted to retain control, although this has meant massively reducing overheads to afford the reimbursement to victims

Kyber has been forced to halve its workforce in order to facilitate repayment to victims of November’s hack. $46 million was stolen from the DeFi platform a month ago by a still unidentified unidentified party, mainly comprising DAI, WETH, and ARB tokens. The aftermath saw the platform’s Total Value Locked (TVL) plummet from $86 million to a mere $7.6 million due to a user asset migration, and the company has been forced to massively reduce its workforce and cut back on future plans in order to make sure that victims are reimbursed. Kyber’s only other option was to comply with a series of ridiculous demands, which would have seen it cede control to the hacker.

Crazy Demands Not Met

Following last month’s hack, the hacker offered to buy the company’s executive members out at what they said was a fair price, adding that they would double employee salaries and offer those willing to leave a 12-month severance package, including benefits. This, the hacker said, would allow them to overhaul Kyber and turn it into a “new cryptographic project.”

Kyber rejected this offer, and other attempts to retrieve the funds proved futile. This left Kyber having to fund the loss from its own coffers, resulting in extreme cost-cutting measures. These measures have resulted in an unfortunate need to reduce overheads, which CEO Victor Tran revealed on Christmas Day:

In the past month, KyberSwap has faced unprecedented challenges due to the Elastic exploit. Despite this, I am grateful to say that our core business, including the Aggregator and Limit Order functions, remains robust.

Moreover, we will soon be launching our Zap API, an…

— Victor Tran (@vutran54) December 25, 2023

In the post, Tran announced that the company had made “significant changes in our business operations to ensure we are well positioned to continue on a sustainable path forward,” which included a temporary halt to the development of the platform’s liquidity protocol initiatives and KyberAI.

Worse was to come, however, with Tran revealing that 50% of the Kyber workforce would be shed to reduce costs, made worse by its proximity to Christmas. The CEO promised to help those leaving the company find work elsewhere, but the necessity to cut the workforce in order to help make up for the losses endured in the hack reveals the human impact of such hacks, and at the worst time of the year.

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