Blockchain Phone Fail: Start-up Sirin Labs Lays off 25% of its Staff
By CCN.com: Sirin Labs, founders of the Finney blockchain phone are making 15 of their 60-person team redundant, as crypto winter bites back with sales of its flagship device “less than expected”.
The market may be showing some positive signs as bitcoin, ethereum and others made strong gains in April, but the bear market continues to show its teeth, claiming the scalp of another start-up.
Sirin Labs, founded by Israeli businessman Moshe Hogeg, first announced the $1,000 smartphone back in July. To much fanfare they claimed it was the world’s first ‘blockchain-powered’ handset, with one of its main selling points being it featured an embedded cold storage wallet.
Hype
The aim was for people to use the phone’s internal exchange to swap tokens without having the hassle of switching tokens from wallet to exchange and back to another wallet, but despite the hype (and backing from Barcelona soccer superstar Lionel Messi) no-one was buying it, Globes reports, and the company had to cut costs.
Getting Messi. Barcelona superstar was a brand ambassador for Sirin Labs. Source: Sirin Labs
Embarassingly, Sirin Labs was forced to deny media reports it had failed to pay its employees’ salaries, with Hogeg telling Globes:
The global market is not in the best state. The company gives some of its work to outsourcing, and plans to focus on development and distribution of the software … Sales are not what we expected.”
