Crypto Bank Anchorage Digital Lays off 75 Employees
- Popular crypto bank, Anchorage Digital, announced on March 14 that it would lay off around 20% of its workforce.
- 75 employees will be let go as the company aims to focus on its long-term vision by adjusting to “changing economic, marketplace, and regulatory conditions.”
- The company also stated that a major reason for refocusing and restructuring is the regulatory uncertainty in America.
- A representative said that Anchorage has witnessed a “low institutional demand for certain classes of digital assets” and therefore “will reduce focus on them.”
The season of layoffs continues to haunt the crypto market, despite the crypto market having recovered significantly compared to the situation in early and late 2022. So far, 2022 is being considered as one of the worst years for the crypto industry, with almost every firm laying off employees. It is crucial to note that popular crypto bank, Anchorage Digital, has become the newest firm to lay off around 20% of its employees.
Anchorage Digital is a digital asset platform and infrastructure provider that provides services like holding, investing, and infrastructure for cryptocurrency and related products. Interestingly, in an announcement on March 14, the bank confirmed that it had laid off around 20% of its workforce, which amounted to 75 employees.
In its statement, Anchorage Digital noted that the company’s “long-term vision requires us to adjust to changing economic, marketplace, and regulatory conditions,” while adding:
“As part of that commitment, today we are announcing that we will be initiating a strategic realignment to better focus our resources. That process includes the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our headcount.”
Anchorage claimed in the statement that its business is “robust and growing” due to the fact that it is the only federally chartered digital asset bank operating under the oversight of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the United States. The company also stated that a major reason for refocusing and restructuring is the regulatory uncertainty in America.
“The strategic adjustments we are undertaking have been developed over the course of a several month-long review process and are in response to an evolving landscape facing the crypto industry at large, shaped by regulatory uncertainty in the U.S., broad macroeconomic challenges, and crypto market volatility,” said Anchorage Digital.
Another important factor to note is that the crypto bank provides a variety of services, including the custody of digital assets, including non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Due to a decline in investment in NFTs and a huge crash in the prices of the same, Anchorage hasn’t seen much demand for its NFT custody services.
A spokesperson told Blockworks that Anchorage has witnessed “low institutional demand for certain classes of digital assets” and therefore “will reduce focus on them.” Interestingly, the firm stated in its announcement that its “client assets under custody are at an all-time high.”
“This restructuring is aimed at fueling the parts of our business that are most essential to our clients in the current and anticipated marketplace. In doing so, Anchorage Digital will be able to serve the growing demand to build regulated solutions for digital asset holders,” said the company.
On the other hand, as reported earlier by BitcoinWisdom, many crypto companies have laid off a significant amount of their workforce in 2023 despite announcing layoffs in 2022 as well. Major crypto exchange Coinbase let go of around 900 employees in January, while the creator of Litecoin, Protocol Labs, laid off almost 21% of its workforce due to the worsening macroeconomic situation.
It was rumored that crypto exchange Huobi would lay off 40% of its employees, but a representative confirmed that the firm would let go of around 20% of the workforce. On March 14, social media giant Meta announced that it would end the support of NFTs on Instagram and Facebook and let go of around 10,000 employees as well.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
