More crypto companies have cut staff in 2026 than any year since 2018

At least 50 crypto companies have cut staff so far in 2026, already more than in any full year since at least 2018, The Coinformer found after analysing industry layoff data from CryptoJobsList's tracker between 2018 and Aug. 8, 2026

• The tracker currently counts 50 crypto, web3 and blockchain companies affected by publicly reported cuts this year.

• For comparison, that is nearly one-third more than the previous high of 38 companies in 2023, despite almost five months of 2026 still remaining.

The difference is even larger compared with other recent years. CryptoJobsList records 29 companies affected in 2022, when the collapse of Terra, Celsius and FTX sent the industry into a prolonged downturn, followed by 23 in 2024 and 18 in 2025.

Earlier years in the dataset were considerably quieter, with eight companies recorded in 2018, six in 2019, two in 2020 and one in 2021.

2026 has already beaten the previous full-year record

The 50-company total puts 2026 about 32% above 2023, the previous record in CryptoJobsList's data.

The comparison is based on companies rather than individual layoff announcements, per CryptoJobsList's disclosure.

• The tracker contains 54 entries for 2026 because several companies have made multiple cuts.
• Gemini appears three times this year, while Coinbase appears twice.
• Polygon and Polygon Labs also represent separate rounds associated with the same organization.

The cuts have continued into the summer rather than being concentrated around a single industry shock.

July alone brought reported reductions at Pump.fun, Gnosis, Luno, Uphold, BitMart, Dango, Odos, BitMEX, Exodus, Polygon Labs, FalconX, AscendEX, Zapper and Yield Guild Games, according to the tracker.

The latest entry as of Aug. 8 is web3 gaming studio Proof of Play, which was recorded as cutting its remaining workforce on Aug. 4.

CryptoJobsList says its database is compiled from public announcements, news reports and community reports. That means the figures should be treated as a record of publicly identified layoffs rather than a complete census of every crypto job lost.

The number of jobs lost tells a less reliable story

CryptoJobsList also puts disclosed job losses this year at more than 7,290, higher than any previous year in its dataset.

But that figure comes with a significant caveat.

More than 4,000 of those jobs came from Block alone. Jack Dorsey's payments company said in February that it would reduce its workforce by more than 40%, taking headcount from more than 10,000 to just under 6,000.

That single reduction represents roughly 55% of all disclosed 2026 job losses in the CryptoJobsList dataset.

And many companies disclose only the percentage of staff being cut rather than an exact headcount, which makes comparisons based on the number of workers considerably less complete than the company-level comparison.

The discrepancy is particularly visible in 2024. CryptoJobsList records 23 companies cutting staff that year but only 60 disclosed jobs because most entries lack an absolute headcount.

So while 2026 is also nominally the biggest year for job losses in the tracker, the data doesn't support concluding that more crypto workers have definitely lost their jobs this year than in every previous downturn.

Paradoxically, the record layoffs contrast with the industry's hiring data. Data from JobStash, the crypto jobs tracker founded by crypto developer David Leonardi, better known as @DuckDegen, shows roughly 7,500 open roles across 790 employers as of Aug. 22, while its seven-day measure of open-job inventory was 47.4% above the preceding 28-day period.

Market scope. Source: JobStash

Trading and engineering were doing better than the broader market, while smart contract jobs lagged by more than 52%, community roles by 40% and growth roles by more than 34%, suggesting crypto companies may simply be shifting what they're hiring for.

No single reason behind the cuts

Unlike the 2022 wave, which was heavily associated with falling crypto prices and failures across the industry, the 2026 cuts have come with a mix of explanations.

• The Coinformer counted 54 separate 2026 entries in the CryptoJobsList dataset.
• Of those, 22 are classified as resulting from market conditions, making it the most common reason.
• Another 19 are classified as restructuring, while nine are categorized as an AI pivot. The remaining entries are attributed to other reasons, regulation or an acquisition.

Some of the biggest companies have explicitly offered very different explanations. For instance, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a May post on X that the exchange would reduce its workforce by about 14%, citing both a down crypto market and changes in how work could be performed with artificial intelligence.

The Ethereum Foundation took another route in June. It said it was parting ways with 54 employees, roughly 20% of the organization after a months-long restructuring intended to focus its resources on work it considered critical.

Although market conditions remain the most frequently cited reason in the tracker, cost restructuring and AI-driven reductions now account for a substantial share of the cuts as well.

How the analysis was done

The Coinformer reviewed CryptoJobsList's annual layoff pages for every year from 2018 through 2026 and compared the tracker's "companies affected" figure for each year.

• The figures were 8 in 2018, 6 in 2019, 2 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 29 in 2022, 38 in 2023, 23 in 2024, 18 in 2025 and 50 so far in 2026.

The analysis uses company count as its primary measure because exact employee numbers are missing for many entries and because Block's unusually large reduction substantially distorts the 2026 headcount total.

The 2026 dataset was checked on Aug. 8 and can continue to change as CryptoJobsList adds, removes or updates reported layoffs.

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