14 team members months after Safe Cuts Bybit’s $1.43 billion theft

A few months after Bybithack raised the alarm over custody risk, SAFE fired 14 employees citing adjustment challenges.

After a $1.43 billion theft from Safe, Safe and Crypto Exchange Bybit went back to a compromised, secure developer machine, 14 team members have been appointed as part of a major rebuild.

On X-Post Wednesday, Safe co-founder Lucas Scholl said the company is “rebuilding its team and saying goodbye to our 14 teammates, those we deeply respect, each of whom have contributed meaningfully to our journey.” Schor added that the decision was driven by increased complexity within the company and increased expectations from projects built on SAFE.

“Complexia has grown over the past year. As ecosystems evolved and opportunities expanded, we expanded our efforts to explore new paths. However, that growth has increased the challenges of adjustment and over time it has begun to affect our ability to travel at the pace we expect.”

Lucas Scholl

Schor said Safe has taken additional steps to support retirees, listing extended garden leave, providing increased retirements, improving token vesting conditions, and supporting occupational placement within the Ethereum ecosystem.

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The company is currently operating through three new teams: a revenue-focused product company, an innovation-focused R&D Lab, and an ecosystem-centric foundation, Schor explained. It becomes “autonomy” for each, and “more concentrated, more agile, and better aligns with what the ecosystem expects,” reads X-Post.

The reorganization takes place less than two months after the theft of the Bibit, which was linked to attacks on a secure developer environment. In a March article on X, Safe revealed that a North Korean hacking group known as Tradertraitor compromised the laptop of a Safe {Wallet} developer and bypassed multifactor authentication using stolen AWS session tokens.

The violation occurred in early February when a Docker project poses as a “stock investment simulator” was downloaded to Safe Developer’s Mac. This project communicated with a suspicious domain, leading to the installation of malware.

read more: Safe Wallet responds to bi-bit hacks with major security improvements