Safe co-founder Lukas Schor announced on April 16, 2025, that the self-custody wallet platform had laid off 14 employees1. “Today was the toughest day since starting Safe: We are restructuring the teams and parting ways with 14 teammates, people we deeply respect, who've each contributed meaningfully to our journey,” Schor wrote on X. Cryptonews reported on April 17, 2025, that the cuts followed February's $1.43 billion Bybit hack2. Investigators traced that hack to a compromised developer machine rather than a flaw in Safe's code.
Two leadership moves at the Safe Foundation on the record since 2025
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 16, 2025 | Layoffs. Layoffs at the Safe Foundation became public |
| June 5, 2025 | Rumalla became CEO, Safe Labs. Rahul Rumalla was named Chief Executive Officer, Safe Labs of the Safe Foundation |
Five rounds of layoffs on the record in 2025
Rounds of layoffs CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2025: 5
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 11 |
| 2023 | 12 |
| 2024 | 6 |
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2026 | 18 |
The move
Schor laid out what the restructuring would build. “Going forward, Safe will operate through three distinct teams: a revenue-focused product company, an innovation-focused R&D lab, and an ecosystem-focused foundation,” he wrote1. He named the other three co-founders, Richard, Christoph and Tobias, as sharing responsibility for the decision. The departing staff would get extra severance, extended garden leave and help finding new roles, he said. “Some of the best talent in crypto is now looking for a place to call home,” Schor added, offering to make introductions to teams that were hiring.
The same post tied the decision to growing pains more than the hack alone. “As the ecosystem evolved and opportunities expanded, we scaled our efforts to explore new paths. But that growth came with increased coordination challenges, and over time, it started to affect our ability to move at the pace we expect of ourselves,” Schor wrote1.
Safe before and after the cuts
Cryptonews reported that the Bybit theft was the largest crypto heist on record2. North Korea-linked attackers known as TraderTraitor broke in through a disguised Docker project on a Safe developer's laptop. The attackers then used stolen session tokens to get past two-factor checks, the outlet wrote. Safe's core contracts stayed untouched. Safe still had to disable hardware wallet links and reset its infrastructure.
What came next
On June 5, 2025, seven weeks after the layoffs, the Safe Ecosystem Foundation named Rahul Rumalla chief executive of Safe Labs, the leader of one of the three teams Schor had announced3. Safe Labs is the new unit built to run product work in-house, instead of through an outside contractor. Schor, in that announcement, described Safe Labs as the infrastructure behind "enterprise-grade, secure, and intuitive" self-custody.
Sources
- Lukas Schor, "lukasschor.eth on X," X, April 16, 2025, https://x.com/SchorLukas/status/1912560313007829107
- Hassan Shittu, "Safe Cut 14 Jobs After $1.43B Hack Triggered Reorganization," Cryptonews, April 17, 2025, https://cryptonews.com/news/safe-cut-14-jobs-after-1-43b-hack-triggered-reorganization/
- Lukas Schor, "Self-Custody Giant Safe Unveils Safe Labs: Names Rahul Rumalla CEO," Safe Ecosystem Foundation, June 5, 2025, https://safefoundation.org/blog/safe-labs-launch-rahul-rumalla-ceo