DeFi network Radix team cuts 15% of staff, citing need to ‘refocus’ 

RDX Works, the team behind the Radix decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has axed 15% of its workforce, citing a need to lower costs.

Officially launching its mainnet in July of 2023, the Radix network offers developer tools to build and run decentralized applications (DApps) and financial services on the blockchain.

The firm’s CEO, Piers Ridyard, confirmed in an Aug. 29 statement to the company’s official Telegram group the staff cuts are to “refocus” and is part of a “more comprehensive set of changes that need to be made.” 

“One of these is also cost cutting. As part of this, we, RDX Works, has taken the difficult decision to reduce total staff by around 15%, which has been done today,” he said. 

On LinkedIn, around 71 people have listed themselves as currently working at RDX Works across varying roles, such as software engineers, cybersecurity analysts, ambassadors and designers. Some are listed as freelancers. 

Ridyard claims key projects at RDX, such as its test network Cassandra and multifactor account persona control and recovery (MFA), are “unlikely to be affected” by the changes. 

However, he did concede that “some familiar faces or points of contact with RDX Works may be disrupted” in the short term. 

“We work to make sure handovers are as smooth as possible, but ask for patience as things may be a little slower than usual over the coming days/weeks as we adjust.”

The Radix ecosystem token (XRD) hasn’t been hugely affected by the news. CoinGecko shows the XRD price has risen by 1% to $0.02352 in the last 24 hours.

However, it’s still down over 96% since achieving its all-time high of $0.6513 on Nov. 14, 2021. 

The staff layoff comes on the heels of a newly announced partnership deal. 

RDX announced on Aug. 27 that it had entered into a strategic development partnership with digital asset market maker Keyrock, asset manager G-20, and crypto high-frequency trading firm Portofino to introduce flash liquidity to the Radix ecosystem.” 

According to RDX, flash liquidity’s “goal is to make any crypto asset, regardless of its native blockchain, liquid and accessible within the ecosystem.”

In March 2023, the company also laid off 25% of its workforce, around the same time as other firms in the crypto space, but the cuts were focused almost entirely on business support teams rather than technical roles. 

Cointelegraph has contacted RDX Works for comment. 

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