Robinhood, the trading app that popularized one-click trading and fueled last year’s memetic stock craze, announced Tuesday it was laying off about 23% of its workforce.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said: blog post Layoffs will affect employees throughout the company, especially those in operations, marketing and program management roles.
Robinhood did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The announcement follows cutbacks in April when Robinhood laid off 340 employees, or about 9% of its workforce at the time. Since then, Teneff wrote that further economic downturns, including inflation and the cryptocurrency market crash, have “decreased client trading activity and assets under custody.” Bitcoin’s price has fallen by more than half this year to around $23,000 per coin. Cryptocurrencies will hit $66,000 in late 2021.
In a note on Tuesday, Teneff said the firm had misjudged economic and trading activity. “As CEO, I have endorsed and taken responsibility for an ambitious staffing trajectory, which is my responsibility,” he wrote.
In early 2021, Robinhood became a major player in the memetic stock boom. That’s when investors banded together to boost stakes in companies like his GameStop, a video game retailer, and his AMC, a movie theater chain. On January 27, 2021, GameStop hit an all-time high, up nearly 1,800% from just a few weeks ago. Robinhood has since restricted the trading of some meme stocks. Stocks plummeted because of the restrictions. Lawsuits, Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and congressional hearings soon followed.
