Today in Crypto: Gemini to Cut 10% of Its Staff

Venture capital firm Canonical Crypto raised $20 million for its first fund to help with financing blockchains, CoinDesk reported Thursday (June 2).

“The thesis is really focused on the world I grew up in, which is developer infrastructure,” Canonical Crypto founder Anand Iyer told CoinDesk in an interview. “I feel like we’re at that phase in crypto right now where we just need better infrastructure … We need better airports to support all of the planes that are flying.”

In other news, the Winklevoss twins, known for their role in forming Facebook years ago, have told Gemini members that the company is cutting 10% of its staff, a company blog noted Thursday.

The release noted that there’s a “crypto revolution” underway, which has seen something the company called “punctuated equilibrium.”

The company said it is thus focusing on products that are “critical” to the mission to make sure the teams are doing well and working with the volatile market solutions. The layoffs were called “difficult but necessary.”

Furthermore, Bloomberg reported Thursday that Rain Financial, one of the biggest Middle East crypto exchanges, has laid off dozens of employees due to the economic conditions.

The decision came down earlier in the week and will go ahead for numerous types of employees, though no specifics were offered. This decision came as crypto prices have fluctuated this year from the highs hit in November.

Finally, the Solana blockchain is up and running after an outage, Bloomberg wrote Thursday. Solana experienced over four hours of downtime, which is only one of many other shutdowns this year thus far.

The rise of Solana has been quick, and the coin has seen outages happen before, with some blackouts and service issues happening for as long as 18 hours in January.