Perhaps the most shocking thing to note about these layoffs at Coinbase is the timing, in which it follows a previous round of substantial job cuts less than a year prior. In June 2022, Coinbase gutted its staff, laying off 18% of the company’s total workforce. At the time, CNBC reported that the company was angling to position itself for strength as the crypto bull market came to a close. Cutting jobs was, in Coinbase’s estimation, the most effective way to slash operating costs as the marketplace headed toward a financial cliff. Still, concurrent layoffs aren’t going to inspire confidence among investors in the stock market’s sole cryptocurrency titan.
According to CNBC, this latest move is geared toward the same kind of fiscal stabilization that Coinbase was reaching for with its first round of layoffs. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong indicated in an interview that this additional cost cutting measure perhaps should have been lumped in with the previous cuts, rather than coming as a second wave of firings, noting “the best you can do is react quickly once information becomes available.”
