Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered U.S. digital asset bank, has reportedly reduced its workforce by 17%, a cut of roughly 68 positions if headcount has held near the 400 employees CEO Nathan McCauley described in February congressional testimony. Cointelegraph reported that McCauley told employees about the reduction this week, citing people familiar with the matter and The Information’s Friday report.
Cointelegraph said Anchorage was valued at $4.2 billion earlier this year. The reported layoffs sit against a year-long crypto market decline, with Bitcoin briefly recovering above $87,000 on Friday but still far below the $126,000 peak it reached last October. The outlet did not receive an immediate response from an Anchorage public relations contact.
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Key facts
- The reported reduction is 17% of staff, or about 68 jobs based on the roughly 400 global employees McCauley cited in February testimony.
- Tether announced a $100 million strategic equity investment in Anchorage on Feb. 5, 2026, tied to the $4.2 billion valuation.
- USAT, Tether’s U.S.-focused stablecoin, launched Jan. 27, 2026, with Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A. named as legal issuer.
- Anchorage announced a LayerZero stablecoin infrastructure partnership on Sep. 21, 2026, with USAT as the first token to use it.
- A Sep. 17, 2026, custody expansion added seven assets on the Tezos layer 2 network Etherlink, including the tokenized uranium asset xU3O8.
Cost cuts land after a major capital raise
The timing sets the reduction apart from a cash crunch. Cryptopolitan reported the Tether transaction gave Anchorage its $4.2 billion valuation and funded the company’s first employee tender offer, meaning the layoffs read as expense control rather than an urgent need for money. Crypto.news recorded Tether’s announcement on Feb. 5 and dated its own funding report on the round to Feb. 7, describing the deal as an expansion of an existing relationship covering custody, staking, governance, settlement and stablecoin issuance.
The staffing move also lands in a shrinking crypto labor market. Cryptopolitan, citing CryptoJobsList, counted more than 7,411 crypto job cuts at 60 companies during 2026, led by Block’s 4,000 reductions in February, while Tiger Research found new listings on major crypto job portals fell about 80% year over year. Among 2,932 openings Tiger Research tracked in the first half of 2026, engineering made up 34.1%, compliance and legal 10.4%, and stablecoins and payments 13.4%.
Expansion continued even as headcount shrank
Crypto.news reported that Anchorage helped bring USAT to market under the U.S. federal stablecoin framework set by the GENIUS Act. Tether’s launch materials named Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer, listed Bybit, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX and MoonPay among first-phase supporting platforms, and stated that the token is not legal tender, is not backed or guaranteed by the U.S. government, and carries no FDIC or SIPC insurance. Anchorage publishes monthly reserve attestations for USAT; Crypto.news said the first January report recorded 17.5 million redeemable tokens outstanding against about $17.6 million in reserve assets.
LayerZero’s cross-chain work for Anchorage-issued stablecoins was announced Sep. 21 and extends the bank’s issuance infrastructure across networks. Crypto.news also named Western Union’s USDPT, OSL Group’s USDGO and Falcon Finance’s fUSD among stablecoins in Anchorage’s issuance portfolio, while cautioning that LayerZero’s support for more than 170 networks is technical reach rather than confirmed deployments of each token.
Anchorage’s regulatory footing traces to January 2021, when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved Anchorage Trust Company’s conversion from a South Dakota trust company into a national trust bank, with an enforceable operating agreement covering capital, liquidity and risk management. Crypto.news reported that OCC records from February 2026 list the termination of that original operating agreement.
Why it matters
Anchorage is one of the few crypto firms with a national trust charter, so a reduction at this scale suggests the downturn is reaching regulated custodians that hold institutional assets, not only trading venues. Clients with collateral in segregated accounts at Anchorage Digital Bank may want clarity on service continuity, but the $100 million from Tether and the $4.2 billion valuation mean this is a cost decision rather than a solvency signal. The wider picture shows the same pattern: institutional demand, thinner staffing.
What to watch
Anchorage has not publicly confirmed the figure, so its own statement or a response to CoinPulseHQ’s request would settle the headcount question. USAT’s next monthly reserve attestation and any further Tether-related disclosures will show whether expansion plans hold at a smaller headcount. Crypto.news said Bitcoin still faces an $86,500 hurdle as ETF buying returned, making the market backdrop the other variable in whether further cuts follow.
This article is not financial advice, and crypto markets are volatile and uncertain.
Reported by cointelegraph.com.
Sources: Cointelegraph, Crypto.news, Cryptopolitan