The firm got off to a great start having raised $46 million from investors.
The business even released its native governance token, MPLX, in September.
A wave of layoffs at Metaplex, a Solana NFT protocol maker, was revealed on Thursday as the Web3 ecosystem continues to be affected by the outbreak brought on by the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX last week.
Stephen Hess, co-founder, and CEO of Metaplex said today through Twitter that the firm had to let off certain number of staff owing to the deteriorating market circumstances in the cryptocurrency industry as a whole and Solana in particular.
Hess stated:
“While our treasury wasn’t directly impacted by the collapse of FTX and our fundamentals remain strong, the indirect impact on the market is significant and requires that we take a more conservative approach moving forward.”
Solana Ecosystem Paying the Price
Metaplex is the protocol that drives NFTs on Solana, which has emerged as a viable competitor to Ethereum’s leading NFT network. The firm got off to a great start having raised $46 million from investors including Multicoin Capital and Jump Crypto, as well as NBA great Michael Jordan.
After months of anticipation, the business finally released its native governance token, MPLX, in September, right in the middle of the bear market, when its value promptly plunged. Solana NFT sales dropped significantly in October, and circumstantial evidence suggests that enthusiasm for the sector has waned in recent weeks as a result of discussions around creator royalties.
Then, last week, FTX fell, bringing down with it everything associated with Sam Bankman-Fried’s preferred network, Solana.
SOL’s value fell by 60% in the days after FTX collapsed, which was three times as much as Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s respective losses. The close relationships between Bankman-Fried and the network seem to have had the most effect on the Solana ecosystem.