Swan abandons mining and IPO, lays off employees

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—by Protos Staff

Swan, a firm focused on offering Bitcoin financial products, is abandoning mining, shelving its planned initial public offering (IPO), and laying off employees, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the firm’s CEO Cory Klippsten. 

Swan’s managed mining business targeted large institutional investors with the opportunity to partner with it and invest in mining facilities. The initial announcement of this product noted that Tether had “already dedicated substantial capital to establishing a major presence in bitcoin mining, much of it through Swan.”

In a statement to Protos, Tether said, “Tether’s hosted contracts with Swan’s mining entity are unaffected and we do not expect any interruptions. The team running such operations is segregated and will continue operating normally.”

Apparently, despite the partnership with Tether, the unit has failed to deliver on Swan’s “expectation of significant near-term revenue.” This apparently led to the decision to delay an apparently planned IPO.

The post also notes that Swan has had to perform a ‘staff reduction’ this week, though numbers were not provided. At least one employee in an education role, Stephen Livera, took to X to state that his position had been eliminated.

Read more: Swan Bitcoin’s custodian now owned by Ripple — but execs have major beef

Despite Swan seeming to have some issues, Klippsten still claims to believe “this is an incredible moment in time for Bitcoin.”

Klippsten had previously criticized Celsius, one of Swan’s competitors, claiming that “the Celsius ‘mining IPO’ was always just marketing puffery.” Now he tells his followers that he will “see you on the battlefield. #TeamBitcoin.” 

Protos has reached out to Swan to determine how ending the managed mining program will affect partners, and how many employees were laid off, and it directed us to Klippsten’s post on X.

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