Bitcoin lays off

The Boston-based cryptocurrency trading company Circle has laid off 30 workers, or about 10 percent of the company’s workforce.

“We made these changes in response to new market conditions, most importantly, an increasingly restrictive regulatory climate in the United States,” Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said in a statement.

The layoffs were announced six days after Circle halted US trading in nine cryptocurrencies, out of concern that the US Securities and Exchange Commission might be planning to regard these cryptocurrencies as securities, rather than as currencies. In that case, any trades would be subject to federal regulations governing securities trading.

“We don’t think that they should be considered securities, but need to ensure that we comply with US laws,” Allaire wrote in a blog posting on Monday. “Innovators, including those working around the clock at Circle and many other companies in the US and abroad, have continued to transform what’s possible with crypto and blockchain technologies. Unfortunately, regulation has failed to keep up.”

Allaire said he would lobby Congress, which is considering a bill that would declare cryptocurrency trading exempt from regulations covering securities trades.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.