Crypto exchange Coinbase announced on Tuesday that it is laying off about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, as part of a broader restructuring aimed at dealing with market volatility and increasing the use of AI tools to improve efficiency.
The restructuring will see the company flatten its organizational structures to just five levels below CEO and COO levels, according to an internal email from company CEO Brian Armstrong posted on the company’s blog.
The reorg will implement new requirements for managers to contribute more and leaders could now have more than 15 direct reports. The company is also focusing on building small teams that use AI tools and will experiment with “one-person teams” that combine engineering, design and product management roles.
Coinbase expects to incur about $50 million to $60 million in severance costs, it said in an SEC filing archiving.
In the email, Armstrong cited the volatility of crypto markets as a reason to review the company’s cost structure.
“While we have weathered this cyclicality many times in the past and come out stronger on the other side, we are currently in a bear market and need to adjust our cost structure now to emerge from this period leaner, faster and more efficient for our next phase of growth,” he wrote.
He also emphasized the need to make the most of AI tools: “AI is changing the way we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what took a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code, and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what’s possible with a small, dramatically focused team has changed every day […] This is a new way of working and we need to leverage artificial intelligence in every aspect of our work.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, California
|
13-15 October 2026
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
