Crypto Market Update: Coinbase cuts workforce, strategy considering Bitcoin sale

Coinbase cuts 14 percent of workforce

Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (Global NASDAQ:COIN) is laying off about 14 percent of its workforce, affecting about 700 employees as the company restructures to deal with sluggish market conditions.

CEO Brian Armstrong detailed the drastic cuts in a company-wide email Later shared onCiting the convergence of a cyclical crypto recession and massive leaps in artificial intelligence (AI).

Armstrong said AI tools have dramatically sped up development, allowing engineers to ship code in days instead of weeks and enabling non-technical staff to push out production-ready features.

To take advantage of these extreme efficiencies, the company is basically flattening its corporate hierarchy to a maximum of five layers below the executive suite. The new structure effectively eliminates “pure managers”, requiring all leaders to contribute actively to their teams as well as practical player-coaches.

Additionally, the exchange is experimenting with hyper-focused “AI-native pods,” pioneering the idea of ​​single-person teams, where one employee simultaneously serves as engineer, designer, and product manager.

Laid-off workers in the US are getting a comprehensive severance package that includes 16 weeks of base pay, equity vesting and continued health care coverage.

Coinbase isn’t the only crypto heavyweight to cite AI as a catalyst for downsizing. Industry rivals like Crypto.com and Gemini have also recently reduced their headcount by 12 and 30 percent, respectively.

Centrifuge Named as Coinbase’s Tokenization Partner

Coinbase has named Centrifuge its preferred tokenization partner on Base, effectively making it the core infrastructure for bringing tokenized funds, credit products, and other real-world assets onto Coinbase’s L2.

The two previously collaborated on a compliant, on-chain S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) fund. The new deal aims to expand that model to a broader menu of tokenized products.

“Centrifuge’s tokenization service enables institutions such as asset managers, credit originators, fintechs, and DeFi protocols to launch vaults without building infrastructure. The Centrifuge stack covers tokenization, asset management and onchain composability, abstracting complexity while maintaining institutional standards,” the companies said in a joint statement On Tuesday (May 5).

The strategy abandons the “diamond hand” policy.

Corporate Bitcoin Whale Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) Is Back to Its Famous Position “Never Sell Out” Philosophy.

during a brutal first quarter earnings call On Tuesday, leadership announced that the software firm will begin actively managing its cryptocurrency reserves to maximize its bitcoin-per-share metric.

The reversal follows a US$12.54 billion net loss for the quarter, largely due to an unrealized hit of US$14.46 billion on its vast digital asset portfolio. The strategy currently holds 818,334 BTC – about 4 percent of the global supply – but that aggressive hoarding strategy has generated about US$1.5 billion in annual liabilities from loan interest and preferred stock dividends.

To meet those huge financial commitments, CEO Phong Le and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor confirmed that selling parts of Strategy’s reserves is now a highly viable option.

Saylor compared the new approach to a real estate development firm, where the company takes advantage of credit to acquire prime properties, allow them to appreciate and then selectively sell them to fund operations.

The executive apparently noted that the company will likely sell some coins soon to “inoculate the market” and prove that the company’s capital structure remains tight.

Ripple Delivers North Korean Hacker Intel to Strengthen Industry Security

Blockchain payments firm Ripple is teaming up with nonprofit Crypto ISAC to distribute critical insider threat intelligence regarding North Korean cyberattacks on the digital asset industry.

shared data Provides rich profiles of suspicious IT operatives attempting to infiltrate crypto companies, along with specific wallet addresses and active indicators of compromise.

Security experts are raising concerns because Lazarus Group’s state-sponsored operatives have abandoned quick technical exploits in favor of incredibly patient, months-long social engineering campaigns.

This change in strategy has been devastatingly effective, with blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs attributing 76 percent of all crypto theft in 2026 directly to a handful of North Korean operations like the recent Drift and KelpDAO exploits.

However, these aggressive defense mechanisms are currently causing intense legal friction within the decentralized finance community. lending protocol aave filed a federal court memorandum Seeking the release of US$71 million stuck in that Arbitrum freeze, arguing that the funds belong to its users rather than the hackers.

ZEC price surges after multicoin tweet

ZEC, the native privacy token for ZCash, has seen major changes in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing it was up more than 20 percent, lagging behind an earlier peak of 30 percent.

happened after price pump Multicoin Capital posted on X It has been building a large ZEC position since around February. It sees ZEC as insurance against governments coming after visible money.

Zcash is a token that allows users to choose whether to make their transactions completely private rather than making them visible on-chain. According to Multicoin’s framework, Zcash is the purest public market asset that combines privacy, censorship resistance, and seizure resistance together.