Why they need these many people for an exchange is puzzling. I’m sure there are many things to do, but shouldn’t they grow their headcount organically and slowly?
[1] https://www.quora.com/Are-Netflix-employees-really-that-good...
On a more serious note and the likely answer to the question: customer support for 100000000 customers (as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread)
You would think so, but a lot of companies who are/were venture backed don't think this way.
There is a tremendous pressure to use funding to accelerate growth, which can work fine in a good economy, but can be a disaster in a recession when no amount of capital can speed up growth.
I think this leads to a lot of companies making bad calls like over hiring or building awkward products. I'm not saying blitz-scaling can't be a strategy, I just think it's treated as the only strategy that matters and people end up in hammer/nail situations.
The fun bit is that in the USA, you can (almost everywhere) whimsically fire anyone without cause and without any transition pay. So what's to stop a company from just hiring a bunch of people while they're growing, and just kicking them out whenever?
I think they already realised it was out of proportions, but you look really (REALLY!) bad if you fire 1000+ people when business is going well.
You only look slightly less really bad if you do so with an implied reason that you then simply don't communicate to anyone.
They also presumably have hefty cyber, legal and financial audit teams to protect their assets, and position themselves in preparation for any changes in the landscape (which has been pretty rocky to say the least).