Anchorage Digital Cuts 17 Percent of Staff

Anchorage Digital, the federally chartered crypto bank valued at $4.2 billion earlier this year, has cut 17 percent of its workforce. Chief executive Nathan McCauley informed employees of the reduction this week, people familiar with the matter told The Information, in a report published Friday and covered by Cointelegraph on Oct. 2. Yahoo Finance carried the same figures the same day.

The percentage points to roughly 68 jobs. McCauley said in congressional testimony in February that Anchorage employed about 400 people around the world, so a 17 percent cut lands near 68 positions if headcount stayed close to that level. Neither outlet named which teams were affected, and the company has not published a breakdown.

Cointelegraph said it contacted a public relations representative for Anchorage for confirmation and received no immediate response. The Information also reported that Anchorage did not answer its requests for comment, so the account rests on the people familiar with the matter cited in the original report.

The cuts land during a long market slump. Bitcoin briefly climbed back above $87,000 on Friday but remains far below the $126,000 peak it reached last October, Yahoo Finance noted in its version of the story. The year-long downturn has pressed institutional crypto businesses even as some headline prices recovered.

Anchorage holds a distinctive place in regulated American crypto. It became the first crypto company to receive a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2021 and has since grown into a major custody provider for institutions. That charter makes its staffing moves a signal for the regulated corner of the industry, not only for one employer.

Anchorage Digital Bank was founded in 2017 in San Francisco and serves institutional clients with custody, settlement, staking, and stablecoin issuance, a February profile says. The same profile notes the company was reported to be exploring a capital raise of $200 million to $400 million ahead of a possible initial public offering next year.

The $100 million Tether investment arrived on Feb. 5 through Tether Investments, the issuer's El Salvador based investment arm, and formalized an existing relationship between the two companies. Tether had reported more than $10 billion in net profit for 2025 with $6.3 billion in excess reserves, and its USDt token held about $185 billion in circulation, or about 60 percent of the stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama data cited in the report.

USAt, the dollar pegged token at the center of the partnership, launched on Jan. 27 with Anchorage as its issuer under the GENIUS Act, the first federal framework for payment stablecoins signed in July 2025, the launch report says. The token started with a $10 million supply as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and was expected on Bybit, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX, and MoonPay, with Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and Bo Hines, a former White House digital assets adviser, as chief executive of the USAt operation.

The reduction sits beside an expansion push. Anchorage has moved into stablecoin issuance, including work on Tether's new U.S. regulated stablecoin USAT. Earlier this year the company received a $100 million strategic investment from Tether, Cointelegraph reported. The investment tied the oldest federally chartered crypto bank to the largest stablecoin issuer at a moment when dollar token projects are competing for regulated footing.

The layoffs arrive months after the $100 million Tether investment and the USAt launch, which had positioned Anchorage at the center of regulated dollar token issuance. Cutting 17 percent of staff while building those products points to cost pressure that new business alone did not remove.

The layoffs also fit a wider pattern of retrenchment. The Information framed the move against a crypto market in a year-long slump, and the 400-person global base cited from McCauley's February testimony shows a company that had staffed up for growth before the downturn persisted. What the company tells remaining staff about hiring plans is not yet public.

For now, the confirmed facts stop at the cut itself. A 17 percent reduction communicated by the chief executive this week, about 68 roles against the last public headcount, reported Friday by The Information and matched in the Cointelegraph and Yahoo Finance accounts. Anchorage has not responded to requests for comment, and no filing or statement from the company has added detail on severance, affected units, or next steps.