Anchorage Digital cuts 17% of workforce amid crypto market slump

Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, has cut 17% of its global workforce as the crypto industry’s layoff wave stretches into its fourth straight year. The reduction lands on a roughly 400-person team Chief Executive Nathan McCauley described to Congress in February 2025, implying around 68 jobs lost.

• Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley told employees of a 17% workforce cut this week, The Information reported.
• McCauley put the company’s global headcount at about 400 people in February 2025 Senate testimony, suggesting roughly 68 roles are affected.
• Anchorage cut 20% of its staff in 2023 after a bank severed its account, a decision McCauley later tied to being debanked.

• 17% share of Anchorage Digital’s global workforce cut this week
• ~68 estimated jobs lost if the 400-person 2025 headcount held
• 20% size of Anchorage’s prior layoff in 2023 after losing its bank
• 10,799 US tech job cuts in September, up 77% from August

Anchorage Digital has laid off 17% of its staff, McCauley told employees this week, according to reporting by BeInCrypto, which cited The Information as the outlet that first broke the news. The report, based on people familiar with the matter, tied the cuts to a crypto market slump running for roughly a year. Anchorage has not issued a public statement on the reduction, and BeInCrypto said it had reached out to the company for comment.

McCauley’s 2025 Senate testimony puts the cut near 68 jobs

Anchorage has not disclosed how many employees the 17% cut affects. The clearest public benchmark comes from McCauley himself.

In congressional testimony in February 2025, McCauley said Anchorage employed about 400 people globally, including 282 workers spread across 37 US states. Applying 17% to that figure points to roughly 68 jobs eliminated, though staffing may have shifted in the twenty months since the hearing. The company’s current total headcount, and the exact scale of this week’s cut, has not been confirmed.

Gemini, Coinbase and Bitwise led a year of crypto layoffs

Anchorage’s reduction extends a run of crypto-sector job cuts in 2026. Gemini shrank its workforce by about 30%, Crypto.com cut 12% of staff in March, and Coinbase said in May it would eliminate about 700 roles, or 14% of its workforce.

Dune laid off 25% of its team in May to focus on AI agents and institutional data, and exchange Luno trimmed 20% of its staff in July. Bitwise cut roughly 14% of its team in August. Other firms shut down entirely, including BitMEX, the Lisk blockchain and the Ethereum layer-2 network Blast.

The pattern mirrors a broader slowdown in technology hiring. US tech firms announced 10,799 job cuts in September, up 77% from August, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Tech employers have announced 165,925 cuts for all of 2026, a 54% rise from the same point a year earlier.

Total US job-cut announcements fell 18% in September even as tech activity rose. Tech accounted for 29% of all 2026 layoffs the firm tracked.

Anchorage’s 2023 cut followed being debanked, testimony shows

Anchorage has reduced its workforce sharply before. In 2023 the company cut 20% of its staff, a decision McCauley later linked to losing access to banking services.

That episode is documented in McCauley’s Senate testimony, where he described a partner bank terminating Anchorage’s corporate account in June 2023 with thirty days’ notice, despite more than two years as what he called an “ideal bank client.” The bank declined to explain its decision or allow an appeal, he told the committee, even though Anchorage had held a federal charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency since January 2021. The testimony does not say whether banking access has again become a factor in this year’s cuts, leaving open whether the current reduction reflects market conditions alone or echoes the funding problems McCauley described to Congress.

The BlockWest read. The headline is staffing, but the backdrop is capital discipline. A federally chartered bank trimming headcount twice in three years signals that even regulated crypto custodians have not escaped margin pressure from thin trading volumes and soft client demand. For institutional allocators who rely on Anchorage for custody and staking, the question is whether cost cuts touch service levels, not whether the charter itself is at risk.

Anchorage has not confirmed how many roles the 17% cut affects or whether further reductions are planned, and BeInCrypto said its request for comment had gone unanswered. Whether the company discloses a precise figure, and whether banking access problems similar to those McCauley described to Congress in February 2025 played any role this time, remain open questions.

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