Po.et makes cuts to its engineering team, CEO says

People • December 14, 2018, 4:15PM EST

Po.et, the decentralized digital rights management platform, has laid off 5 employees — including contractors — according to CEO Jarrod Dicker. They held various roles on the firm's engineering team, according to Dicker. Po.et is a subsidiary of BTC Inc., the parent company of many well-known digital media companies in the crypto space. In addition to Po.et, BTC Inc. is the parent company of LTB Network, Bitcoin Magazine, and Distributed. In September 2017, Po.et sold $10M worth of its native token, POE, via an initial coin offering. POE tokens are used to incentivize the curation and claims of content on the Po.et network. Unlike most decentralized networks, Po.et is built on the Bitcoin blockchain. It's network officially went live on the Bitcoin main-net in November 2018.

Dicker said in an interview, "The life cycle of a product and a company will constantly change." He declined to definitely say whether the market backdrop was behind the layoffs. Still, he said: "We need to be aware of everything that is going on in the market."

Po.et's layoffs come after a string of layoffs from crypto companies. These companies include SpankChain, Steemit, and ConsenSys.

About Author

Steven Zheng is a researcher for The Block. He joined The Block in August 2018. Steven graduated from St. John’s University with a degree in economics. Previously, he covered blockchain and crypto at Radicle, a startup analytics firm. He also had brief stints at Cheddar, a media startup, and Bowery Capital, a venture capital firm. He owns bitcoin. Follow Steven on Twitter at: @Dogetoshi