Coinbase slashes headcount, sees "fleets of agents" instead
Coinbase is laying off over 690 members of staff – due in large part to how AI is transforming software engineering, CEO Brian Armstrong said today.
The popular cryptocurrency exchange is “currently in a down market and [we] need to adjust our cost structure,” Coinbase’s Armstrong said.
He added: “AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks.
“Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day.”
(Senior technologists have repeatedly bewailed to The Stack how non-technical teams and developers alike are using AI to generate hundreds of new "features" ideas that cannot be safely baked into production, for which QA is not remotely ready, and which it is unclear customers even want...)
In this letter, the CEO of Coinbase talks about non-technical teams shipping production code. Honestly, I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about.
— Uncle Bob Martin (@unclebobmartin) May 6, 2026
Using AI agents makes it possible for teams who are not deeply technical in the syntax of a language to ship production code.… https://t.co/HSJdPDWORV
Coinbase's CEO also said that the company would be "flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO" and that "leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports..."
Coinbase’s global trading volume and market share doubled year-on-year in its financial year ended in February. It stores some 12% of all crypto in the world, significantly more than any of its rivals, and employs ~4,700 staff.
Coinbase works with thousands of firms, five global systemically important banks and 150 government agencies, executives said on its last call. Its 2025 total revenue was $7.2 billion, up 9% year-on-year, earnings showed.
Coinbase layoffs: Fleets of agents, please
But the market is volatile, Armstrong told staff today, sharing his message on social media. He said the company is going to be “concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact.”
That will be part of a broader restructuring, the exchange’s co-founder and chief executive added, describing it as an effort to rebuild Coinbase “as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it” – the company will flatten its organisation structure, and make managers function like “player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.”
Coinbase did not name the precise number of staff being laid off, but described it as 14% of the firm. It ended its last quarter with 4,951 staff.
It closed its last quarter on a GAAP basis with a net loss of $667 million “primarily driven by a $718 million unrealized loss on our crypto investment portfolio and a $395 million loss on strategic investments,” earnings showed.