Coinbase slows hiring companywide as crypto market faces downturn

• The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, Coinbase, is feeling the effects of the crypto downturn.
• Coinbase is "slowing hiring" and pausing plans to triple the size of the company.

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, is pausing growth plans for the year amid a major downturn in the crypto market.

"Given current market conditions, we feel it's prudent to slow hiring and reassess our headcount needs against our highest-priority business goals," Coinbase President Emilie Choi wrote in a note to staff that was also published on the company's blog.

Coinbase was planning to "triple the size of the company" this year, but those plans are now on hold. It will instead focus on "fully integrating all recent hires," Choi said, in light of the ongoing downturn in the crypto market.

In the last six months, the value of bitcoin has dropped by half — from about $60,000 per bitcoin in November 2021 to about $30,000 by May 2022.

Since bitcoin is foundational to much of the crypto economy, other popular digital coins, like Ethereum, have also plummeted in value.

Coinbase operates as a kind of stock exchange for crypto assets. Users are able to exchange currency for crypto coins, which can then be resold or held like stocks. The company recently said it might have to absorb its users' cryptocurrency in the event of a bankruptcy; it currently holds about $256 billion in user assets across fiat currency and cryptocurrency.

In that event, all Coinbase users could lose any holdings kept on the service. Following that disclosure, crypto enthusiasts encouraged Coinbase users to transfer their holdings elsewhere.

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