Blocknative Reduces Headcount by Third, After Suspending Work on Relay Project

Blocknative, a provider of tools for transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, has recently undertaken a restructuring that resulted in a headcount reduction of just over 33%, according to CEO Matt Cutler.

The company is “focused on extending our runway so that we have ample opportunity to pursue our Real-Time Observability thesis,” Cutler told CoinDesk in an email.

Blocknative, which was founded in 2018, now has 24 people in total, according to Cutler, implying about a dozen employees were affected.

The company raised $12 million in a funding round in July 2021 from Foundry Group, Blockchain Capital Robot Ventures and others, after raising $5 million in a seed round a year earlier, CoinDesk previously reported. Blocknative announced another $15 million investment round in December 2022.

“Taken together, these changes extend our runway to well over three years,” Cutler wrote in the email.

The restructuring at Blocknative adds to job cuts in the blockchain industry that have accelerated in recent weeks with digital-asset markets seemingly stalled, including prices for bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum’s ether (ETH), and deepening the pall known as “crypto winter.”

Blocknative’s restructuring comes just a couple weeks after the company announced it would exit services related to its MEV-Boost Relay, a type of software used by Ethereum network validators, after the effort failed to ‘materialize’ economically.

Cutler said then that Blocknative would continue in other core services. The company’s website lists products including mempool explorer, transaction simulation, Ethereum gas estimator and Polygon estimator.

"Existing services will continue uninterrupted, and receive updates/enhancements," Cutler told CoinDesk Monday. "New services will be launched before the end of the year."

Read more: Blocknative to Suspend MEV-Boost Relay After Economics Fail to ‘Materialize’