Consensys Cuts 20% of Workforce, Focuses on Decentralization

Consensys, a blockchain development company, has started a significant reorganization that will reduce staff by more than 20%.

Joe Lubin, the CEO of Consensys, said that the company’s reorganization plan will impact 162 permanent employees.

Joe Lubin, the CEO of Consensys and a co-founder of Ethereum, acknowledged that the change had affected 162 people. The corporation wants to hasten efforts to decentralize several aspects of its main business offerings and streamline operations.

There are several reasons for this, and they all seem equal. Joe Lubin states, “The first obvious one is just the long-term financial sustainability aspects in the face of potential economic volatility, which is not necessarily more important than the others.”

According to Lubin, Consensys wants to grow into a “smaller, much more agile organization” to leverage better the “broad and deep capabilities” it has developed.

Among its many Ethereum-focused software products and services, Consensys is most recognized for creating the layer-2 protocol Linea and the browser-based Ethereum wallet MetaMask. There are now 828 employees working for the company.

Lubin stressed that Consensys is dedicated to providing its departing employees comprehensive healthcare coverage, outplacement assistance, and sizeable severance compensation. Additionally, displaced employees’ stock option exercise periods would be extended from 12 to 36 months.

The SEC case had little impact on restructuring.

As the US Securities and Exchange Commission continues to target different businesses and initiatives within the Ethereum ecosystem, Consensys has been actively involved in a legal dispute with the agency since 2024.

Lubin previously said that the expenses made were required to counter what the industry considers to be a flagrant abuse by the administration of SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

When Lubin was questioned about whether Consensys’s attempts to take on the SEC had affected its restructuring plans, Lubin downplayed any indication that the company might have spent too much on legal fees:

“We didn’t overextend our resources at all. We didn’t pick this fight. The SEC has been carpet bombing the ecosystem for years with investigations, Wells notices and lawsuits.”

Lubin continued that Consensys has adopted a “thoughtful approach to going on the offensive” against the SEC.

Vitalik’s demand for decentralization of Ethereum L2

To address centralization concerns in 2024, fellow Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called on layer-2 projects to decentralize their protocols and operations aggressively.

According to Lubin, Consensys has been attempting to decentralize itself without interference from outside forces:

“Anything that that Vitalik says in that vein gets a cheer from me and from the company, but there’s no extra pressure on us from Vitalik or from anybody outside of Consensys.”

With several of its projects, Consensys has been getting ready for a quick transition to decentralized models, Lubin continued.

Giving MetaMask, Linea, and Infura priority

Lubin acknowledged that no section at Consensys is experiencing more layoffs than others, indicating that the company’s restructuring is extensive.

“Activities in Linea and MetaMask are receiving more of our attention. According to Lubin, DIN, the decentralized infrastructure network, has already begun to change Infura.

He went on to say that Infura is still essential to MetaMask’s operation. The ability to extend to and support a wide variety of blockchains is one of metamask’s long-term objectives:

“This is both EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine] blockchains, which we can handle pretty easily, but also non-EVM blockchains, which we’ve been able to rely on through third parties on the DIN network.”

Joe Lubin stressed that Consensys, which offers products like MetaMask, Infura, Truffle, Diligence, Besu, Teku, GNARK, DIN, and Linea, is seeking to convert its Ethereum suite into protocols in the long run.