Crypto firms are ditching hundreds of workers to bet the house on AI

The Algorand Foundation on Wednesday joined the ranks of crypto firms slashing headcount, losing 25% of its fewer than 200 employees and citing “the uncertain global macro environment” and a broader crypto downturn.

The cuts arrived as a wave of layoffs proliferates across the industry. In February, Gemini Space Station (GEMI) said it would eliminate roughly 200 positions, about a quarter of its staff, a figure that had grown to 30% by mid-March. On Thursday, Crypto.com said it is trimming 12%, about 180 roles.

That’s on top of 20 employees who got the chop at OP Labs, the company building layer-2 blockchain Optimism, earlier this month and the five full-time employees and three contractors let go at PIP Labs, the team behind Story Protocol, 10% of its workforce. Messari, a crypto data provider that now bills itself as an AI-first company, announced its third round of layoffs since 2023 alongside a CEO change, without giving a number.

Official explanations varied. Algorand pointed squarely at macro conditions and weak token prices, though many framed their cuts as a pivot toward greater use of AI in the workflow.

“AI is now too powerful not to use at Gemini,” the company said in its letter to shareholders. “Not using AI at Gemini will soon be the equivalent of showing up to work with a typewriter instead of a laptop.”

“We are joining the list of companies integrating enterprise-wide AI,” a Crypto.com spokesperson told CoinDesk on Thursday, pointing to increased efficiencies needing fewer workers. CEO Kris Marszalek on X said companies that do not pivot toward integrating AI into their processes will fail.

Algorand’s cuts reportedly hit community management and business development roles, not positions obviously displaced by AI. To be fair, the company blamed the broader crypto environment. It’s ALGO token recently traded around $0.09, down 98% from its 2019 peak. Bitcoin BTC$70,448.42, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has lost 20% this quarter.

Industry consolidation

Industry observers pointed to a broader consolidation dynamic. Entire crypto sectors like restaking, DePIN and layer 2s, which were once flush with talent have contracted sharply, while M&A activity is adding to redundancies as acqui-hires — employees acquired by buying a company — displace legacy employees.

“I see no real indication that these layoffs have anything to do with AI workforce replacement at scale,” said Dan Escow, the founder of crypto recruitment agency Up Top. “Entire categories like restaking, DePIN and L2s that were once robust with talent are basically non-existent. Companies are forced into cost-cutting mode to buy time to figure out how to execute on whatever comes next.”

The broader hiring picture supports that reading. New job postings across major crypto job boards ran at roughly 6.5 per day in January, down around 80% from the same period a year earlier.

Just the companies mentioned in this story — excluding Messari, which did not disclose numbers — have announced around 450 job cuts in a matter of weeks. Thay may be the tip of the iceberg, in crypto winter of 2022 CoinDesk tracked more than 26,000 job losses over the course of the year, a tally that took months to become apparent.