The Winklevoss twins' Gemini crypto exchange is cutting 10% of staff amid wider market downturn

• Gemini, the crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss twins, is cutting 10% of its staff, Bloomberg reported.
• In a memo to staff, the twins refer to the "crypto winter" and macroeconomic factors as reasons for the cuts.

The cryptocurrency business run by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss is cutting 10% of its staff in response to a downturn in trading activity across the industry, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

This marks the first job cuts at Gemini Trust Co., which as a privately held company doesn't disclose its number of employees. The report said LinkedIn lists about 1,000 people who may work there.

"This is where we are now, in the contraction phase that is settling into a period of stasis — what our industry refers to as 'crypto winter,'" the Winklevoss brothers wrote to employees in a Thursday memo viewed by Bloomberg News. "This has all been further compounded by the current macroeconomic and geopolitical turmoil. We are not alone."

The industry in 2018 suffered through a "crypto winter" – a long period of time of prices crashing and struggling to recover.

The value of the broader cryptocurrency market has been roughly halved since hitting highs in November, dropping down to $1.3 trillion on Thursday from $3 trillion about seven months ago, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin has slumped 35% during 2022, trading around $30,000 on Thursday.

Gemini in late 2021 said it raised $400 million in a funding round that valued the company at $7.1 billion, the report said.