Photo credit: dYdX

The decentralized crypto exchange dYdX Trading has laid off 35 percent of its staff, with newly returned CEO Antonio Juliano hinting at the need for a new company direction.

Juliano, who rejoined as CEO on Oct. 10 after stepping away from the role in May, stated: "Today, I made the incredibly difficult decision to lay off 35% of the dYdX core team. The decision to let go was a realization that the company we’ve built is different from the company dYdX must be.

"We will move forward with clarity and renewed passion. We will create amazing things."

This decision coincides with Consensys, the firm behind MetaMask, reducing its workforce by 20 percent to become a "more agile organization," according to CEO Joe Lubin.

Juliano had previously hinted at the need to revitalize the company when he returned as CEO, saying he was “going into Founder Mode to run the company personally.”

"dYdX has had a challenging year. We’ve faced tough competition and a tough market. It’s become obvious to me we need to revitalize the company or we will fade," Juliano wrote in an Oct. 10 blog post.

dYdX Trading is the firm behind dYdX Chain, a layer-1 blockchain based on the Cosmos SDK and using the Tendermint proof-of-stake protocol.

One of its primary offerings, dYdX v4, is a perpetual futures exchange currently ranked sixth in 24-hour trading volume across all decentralized crypto exchanges.

The company has had a tumultuous few months in Juliano’s absence.

In July, its exchange domain was compromised in a domain name service (DNS) attack, allowing the attacker to host a malicious site that requested any connected wallets to transfer Ether and other ERC-20 tokens to the attacker’s Ethereum address.

Around the same time, reports emerged that dYdX had been discussing the sale of some of its derivative trading software with crypto market makers.

dYdX later said in a statement that it was “exploring strategic alternatives related to the v3 technology,” which does not include the Ethereum smart contract or other technology governed by the utility token.

The recent layoff comes as Bitcoin hit close to all-time highs on October 29, falling just $300 short of its all-time high of $73,857.

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