Community Trust ScoreVerified
Anchorage Digital is shedding 17% of its staff. That’s roughly 68 people gone, at a federally chartered crypto bank that was valued at $4.2 billion earlier this year.
Why It Matters
The decision by Anchorage Digital to reduce its workforce highlights the ongoing challenges faced by the crypto sector, particularly as Bitcoin remains significantly below its all-time high. This move reflects broader market pressures and may signal a tightening of operational costs among crypto firms as they adapt to a more cautious investment environment. The cuts also raise questions about the sustainability of crypto institutions that have experienced rapid growth during the previous market highs.
CEO Nathan McCauley told employees about the cuts this week. As of February, Anchorage had around 400 people on payroll — that figure came straight from McCauley’s own congressional testimony, so it’s pretty hard to dispute. Do the math and 17% lands at about 68 jobs. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment on the layoffs, so details beyond that are murky. What’s clear is the timing: Bitcoin recently traded around $87,000, which sounds high until you remember it hit $126,000 in October last year. That gap — roughly 30% off the top — has been grinding on crypto firms for months now, and Anchorage isn’t the only shop that’s felt it.
Why Anchorage Matters More Than a Typical Crypto Layoff
Most crypto layoff stories blur together fast. Anchorage is a bit different. Back in 2021, it became the first crypto company to land a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. That’s a big deal — it basically made Anchorage a federally recognized digital asset bank, not just another startup holding keys for clients. It put the firm in a category of its own when it comes to regulated custody in the U.S., and that status has been core to how it pitches institutional clients ever since.
So when a company with that pedigree cuts 68 jobs, it’s worth paying attention. It’s not a signal that Anchorage is collapsing — the Tether money alone makes that hard to argue — but it does say something about how brutal the current market cycle has been even for the well-capitalized players.
And the Tether piece is significant. Earlier this year, Tether put $100 million into Anchorage. That’s not a small check. Tether is the largest stablecoin issuer in the world by a wide margin, and a $100 million strategic investment into a federally chartered U.S. crypto bank is the kind of move that doesn’t happen without a longer-term plan behind it.
Stablecoin Push Continues Despite the Cuts
Part of that plan seems to be USAT. Anchorage has moved into stablecoin issuance, including the launch of Tether’s new U.S.-dollar stablecoin, USAT. That’s a notable pivot for a firm that built its name primarily around custody. Custody is the core business — holding digital assets securely for institutions — but stablecoin infrastructure is where a lot of the action is moving, especially as regulated U.S. players look for ways to stay relevant in a market that keeps evolving.
Stablecoin adoption across institutional finance has grown sharply in recent years. More banks, payment processors, and asset managers want exposure to dollar-pegged digital assets, and they want that exposure through firms they can trust from a regulatory standpoint. Anchorage, with its OCC charter, is basically purpose-built for that role. The USAT launch fits neatly into that positioning.
Whether the layoffs slow any of that down is unclear. Anchorage didn’t say which teams or functions took the hit, and the company’s silence on the details makes it hard to know if product development got cut or if it was more back-office and support roles. No details on that. Probably matters a lot for how fast USAT scales, but we don’t have the answer yet.
What’s not in question is that Anchorage is still spending money on growth even while cutting headcount. A $100 million investment from Tether and a new stablecoin product launch don’t come cheap. The workforce reduction looks more like a cost-structure adjustment than a retreat — trimming the parts of the business that don’t fit the current market while doubling down on the institutional and stablecoin bets.
Crypto firms across the board have been doing versions of this since the market peaked. The companies that survive these cycles tend to be the ones that cut fast, keep the revenue-generating teams intact, and wait for sentiment to turn. Whether Anchorage is doing that cleanly or not, we can’t say for certain — again, the company didn’t respond.
McCauley’s congressional testimony earlier this year put the headcount at 400. Post-cuts, that’s probably somewhere around 332, give or take. For a firm handling institutional custody at the scale Anchorage operates, that’s still a meaningful team. But it’s a leaner one than it was a few months ago, and the market that pushed them here — Bitcoin down roughly 30% from its October high of $126,000 — hasn’t fully recovered.
The $100 million from Tether came in earlier this year, before the cuts were announced.
Hub: Bitcoin price, news, and analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
How many jobs is Anchorage Digital cutting?
Anchorage Digital is cutting approximately 68 jobs, which equals 17% of its workforce based on the roughly 400 employees CEO Nathan McCauley cited in congressional testimony earlier this year.
What is USAT and what does Anchorage have to do with it?
USAT is a new U.S.-dollar stablecoin from Tether, and Anchorage Digital is involved in its issuance — part of a broader push by Anchorage into stablecoin infrastructure alongside its core custody business.
