Anchorage Digital, the crypto custodian and first crypto company to receive a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), has laid off roughly 17% of its staff, according to people familiar with the matter cited by The Information.
According to the report, CEO Nathan McCauley informed employees of the cuts this week, with the company citing a year-long downturn in crypto markets as the backdrop for the reduction. Anchorage had about 400 employees globally as of February, according to McCauley’s congressional testimony, meaning a 17% reduction would represent roughly 68 positions if the headcount remained unchanged.
The Crypto Times has reached out to Anchorage for confirmation and comment at 08:08 UTC on October 3 and will update the article if the company responds.
Anchorage Cuts Workforce Amid Crypto Downturn
Founded in 2017, Anchorage received conditional OCC approval to convert Anchorage Trust Company into Anchorage Digital Bank, National Association, in January 2021. The OCC said the conversion would bring the company into the federal banking system under a national trust bank charter.
Anchorage was valued at about $4.2 billion in February 2026, according to The Information, following a $100 million strategic investment from Tether. The company provides institutional digital-asset custody and has expanded into stablecoin issuance.
The workforce reduction therefore comes as Anchorage continues operating across custody and stablecoin-related businesses, rather than following an announced withdrawal from those activities. The company has not publicly detailed which teams or functions were affected.
Cutting Staff While Expanding Stablecoin Issuance
Anchorage’s workforce reduction comes as the company continues to expand its stablecoin business.
Anchorage Digital Bank issues Tether’s USAT and Western Union’s USDPT, among other stablecoins. Anchorage’s current materials identify USAT as a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank in collaboration with Tether, while USDPT is issued by Anchorage for Western Union.
Western Union’s USDPT launched on Solana, with Anchorage serving as the federally regulated issuer. The company says the stablecoin is designed for use within Western Union’s global money-movement network. The Crypto Times has previously covered Western Union’s USDPT launch and whether USDPT can challenge established stablecoins.
However, Anchorage has not disclosed how the workforce reduction affects its stablecoin issuance, custody business or other operations. It is therefore too early to determine whether the cuts represent a shift in investment between those business lines.
Part of Broader Crypto-Sector Retrenchments
Anchorage’s reported reduction follows a series of workforce cuts across the digital-asset industry in 2025 and 2026, although companies have cited different reasons for their decisions.
In 2026, Coinbase cut about 14% of its workforce, or roughly 700 employees, as part of a restructuring that the company linked to market conditions and a shift toward an AI-focused operating model. Gemini initially announced plans to reduce its workforce by up to 25% in February, before reporting in March that restructuring had reduced headcount by about 30% to roughly 445 employees.
Other crypto firms have also reduced headcount this year. Payward, Kraken’s parent company, cut about 150 jobs from a workforce of roughly 3,000 in May, while Dune reduced its workforce by 25% as it narrowed its focus around blockchain data and AI.
BitGo, another digital-asset infrastructure and custody company, cut nearly 15% of its workforce in June while redirecting resources toward AI infrastructure, stablecoins, and trading services. Bitwise also cut about 14% of its staff in August, reducing its workforce from roughly 180 to 155 employees. The Crypto Times reported that the reduction followed a decline in digital-asset prices during the first half of 2026, although the company said its remaining workforce was still its largest in eight years.
The pattern was also seen in 2025. Lido reduced its workforce by about 15% in August 2025, with the company describing the move as a cost-management measure, while Eclipse Labs cut about 65% of its workforce later that month as it shifted its focus toward user-facing applications.
The reasons behind these reductions have varied, including market conditions, cost management, restructuring, AI adoption, and changes in business strategy. Anchorage’s reported 17% reduction therefore adds to a broader pattern of workforce reductions across the sector, but the available reporting does not establish whether its cuts were driven solely by the crypto-market downturn or by a wider restructuring..
Why It Matters
For the crypto industry, Anchorage’s reduction is a reminder that the current downturn is a revenue story as much as a price story: even firms winning high-profile mandates are managing to a leaner cost base while they wait for activity to recover. It also highlights the gap that has opened within crypto between the businesses that are growing — regulated stablecoins, institutional custody, and compliance infrastructure — and the headcount built during busier years.
Anchorage appears to be betting on the former while trimming the latter. Whether that recalibration proves well-judged depends on a market recovery no one can schedule, and The Crypto Times makes no forecast on its timing.
This is a developing story and will be updated with any statement from Anchorage.
