Crypto News July 1 – Crypto recruitment drive & Facebook NFTs

Last month crypto companies across the industry were announcing job cuts – now, they're open for business again.

In the days after a crypto price collapse on June 13th, Coinbase was the first company to cut 18% of its workforce. This was followed a few days later by Bybit cutting 30% of its 2000-strong staff. Crypto.com later laid off 5% of its workforce as Celsius and other DeFi protocols also announced freezes on withdrawals.

But inside a few weeks many cryptocurrency businesses – including Coinbase – are announcing a new recruitment drive.

In other crypto news, Meta has begun rolling out the possibility to integrate crypto wallets and support NFTs on both Facebook and Instagram. Meanwhile, the EverGrow Coin project is about to launch a BNB Chain-based NFT marketplace to drastically reduce minting fees in the industry.

Facebook NFTs

Meta has begun testing the implementation of NFTs for US-based creators on Facebook.

Only NFTs on Ethereum and Polygon are supported so far, with Solana and Flow-based NFTs expected to be rolled out in the near future. The Meta Product Manager Navdeep Singh Tweeted that users will have a 'digital collectibles' tab on their Facebook profiles where they can showcase NFTs.

Eligible users will have to connect their crypto wallets to their Facebook profiles. NFTs can then be turned into Facebook posts which can have reactions, comments, and shares just like any other post. 

It comes as tech and media consultant Martin Bryant made a Tweet suggesting that Meta wants to offer a 'home' for Web3 folks. Instagram also tested out NFTs back in May, according to Decrypt.

LunaSky NFT marketplace 

The popular cryptocurrency EverGrow Coin will launch a new NFT marketplace on the BNB Chain in the coming weeks.

LunaSky – as the platform is known – will slash minting fees to around $0.20-$0.40 cents according to a recent Twitter video. This is way below Ethereum gas fees which can often cost from $10 up to even $40 and $50. The OpenSea marketplace also passes minting fees onto customers, which means LunaSky will let creators make more profits and customers buy NFTs for less.

According to the EverGrow Coin website, LunaSky will also allow NFT staking. This lets crypto users borrow digital assets against their NFTs as collateral. EverGrow Coin aims to become the top crypto for passive income and has paid more than $37 million to investors since September using a scalable 14% transaction tax.

Cryptocurrency firms back open for business 

Kraken has announced it will recruit 650 new members of staff in the US and UK this week. Positions are full-time and remote and include roles for IT, engineering, HR, marketing, advertising, PR, legal, finance, and sales.

Kraken's recruitment drive is the biggest but far from the only one in the crypto space this week.

The creators of the USDC stablecoin – Circle – have also announced 159 new full-time, remote positions over the past week. Roles are also related to sales, IT, finance, product management, and project management.

In total, more than 562 crypto job ads have been posted in the UK alone over the past week. Almost 30% of the jobs are for software engineers – but marketing managers and blockchain developers are also in demand. 

Bloomberg also reports that Coinbase will expand its presence in Europe with new recruitments. The news comes just weeks after Coinbase cut 1,100 jobs (18% of its workforce) due to the crash in crypto prices. 

According to Nana Murugesan, Coinbase's vice president of business development and international, the crypto exchange aims to register in new markets including Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands.