Technology

Coinbase laying off hundreds of employees, citing AI advancements

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by Julia Shapero - 05/05/26 10:53 AM ET

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by Julia Shapero - 05/05/26 10:53 AM ET

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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced Tuesday that the cryptocurrency exchange is laying off hundreds of employees, pointing to the market’s current downswing and recent AI advancements.

The company plans to reduce its workforce by about 14 percent, Armstrong said in an email to employees shared to the social platform X, which is equivalent to almost 700 jobs, based on the nearly 5,000 employees it reported at the end of last year.

“Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both,” Armstrong wrote.

He argued that Coinbase needs to “adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth” amid the current dip in the crypto market.

The total value of the crypto market fell from about $4.3 trillion last October to almost $2.8 trillion as of early Tuesday. The price of bitcoin currently sits at nearly $81,000, down substantially from a record-high of $126,000 in October.

Armstrong in Tuesday’s post also suggested that AI is “changing how we work,” emphasizing how the technology has accelerated what workers can accomplish.

“All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company,” he added. “The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.”

He said the company will be “concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents” and experimenting with smaller teams, including one-person teams.

Several major tech companies have also announced layoffs this year. Amazon announced in January that it was cutting 16,000 jobs, while Meta said in April that it was laying off about 8,000 employees, CNBC noted.

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