Coinbase to lay off 18% of workers as crypto market worsens

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global announced on Tuesday, June 14 that it will lay off 18 per cent of its workforce in another sign of a worsening crypto downturn, that has led to a loss of hundreds of millions of the total cryptocurrency market value.

One of the biggest US-based crypto exchange firm, Coinbase is following the footsteps of other cryptocurrency-related businesses that have recently cut staff. This includes competitor exchange Gemini Trust and lender BlockFi both of which cited the arrival of a crypto winter downturn as the reason for the layoffs.

Coinbase had hired aggressively in recent years, with its workforce ballooning by about 1,200 employees this year. The company plans to lay off roughly that amount, ending the current quarter with about 5,000 employees.

Coinbase CEO @brian_armstrong announced today the difficult decision to reduce the size of the Coinbase team by 18%. More details and rationale in Brian’s email to employees, which has been made public for all to see ➡️ https://t.co/SpdZU3KdpS

— Coinbase (@coinbase) June 14, 2022

Until recently, the company didn’t acknowledge the arrival of a crypto winter, even though its shares have been dropping since it went public more than a year ago. They are down nearly 80 per cent year to date, according to Bloomberg data.

Laid off employees will receive a minimum of 3.5 months of severance, plus two weeks for every year of employment.

The cryptocurrency downturn began soon after Bitcoin hit its all-time-high in November. Earlier this year, the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin and related Luna token erased billions of market gains.

In the past week, coin prices plunged after crypto lender Celsius Network froze withdrawals amidst what many suspect was a bank-run-like event.

Read: Binance resumes Bitcoin withdrawals after temporary halt