Anchorage Digital to cut 20% of staff as part of “strategic realignment”
Digital asset platform Anchorage Digital is to reduce its headcount by 20%, 75 employees, citing regulatory uncertainty, crypto market volatility and macroeconomic headwinds.
Anchorage Digital cuts 20% of staff
Despite a “robust and growing” business, Anchorage says the job cuts are a necessary part of a “strategic realignment” to refocus its resources as it adjusts to “changing economic, marketplace, and regulatory conditions”.
In a statement on the firm’s website, Anchorage outlines how the “adjustments” it is making are the result of a several months-long review process.
“This restructuring is aimed at fuelling the parts of our business that are most essential to our clients in the current and anticipated marketplace,” it adds.
Although its client assets under custody are “at an all-time high”, Anchorage says, the same dynamics driving demand for its “safe and secure” digital asset services are also creating headwinds for the business and the wider cryptosphere.
Anchorage offers prime brokerage services and custom API integrations for financial institutions looking to get involved with digital assets.
In December 2021, Anchorage raised $350 million in a Series D funding round.
The round, led by global investment firm KKR, valued Anchorage at over $3 billion and marked KKR’s first investment in a digital asset company via its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II.
At the time, Anchorage said some of the funding would go towards growing its workforce.
Mass layoffs have dominated the news since the end of the pandemic, with many fintechs shedding staff as they look to navigate gloomy macroeconomic conditions and revert back to pre-pandemic levels of staffing.
African paytech Chipper Cash, buy now, pay later (BNPL) fintech Affirm, crypto firm Luno, US financial services giant Capital One and digital lending platform LendingClub are among some of the most recent firms to axe jobs.
