With the bitcoin price still sitting roughly 44% below the all-time high of around $125,000 hit in October, a number of crypto firms have announced staff cuts. Notably, various integrations and upgrades of internal processes to include more use of AI have been at the center of the press releases associated with these cuts.
On Thursday, it was announced that Crypto.com would be laying off roughly 12% of its entire workforce. In a statement, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said the areas of the business that will be affected by the layoffs are those which do not adapt to the increased use of AI across the entire company. “We are joining the list of companies integrating enterprise-wide AI,” Marszalek said on X. “Companies that do not make this pivot immediately will fail.”
We are joining the list of companies integrating enterprise-wide AI. Companies that do not make this pivot immediately will fail. Companies that move slowly will be left behind. Companies that move immediately and pair the best AI tools with top-performers will achieve a level of…
— Kris | ai.com (@kris) March 19, 2026
On top of that, crypto exchange Gemini announced layoffs of its own, and cuts at the Winklevoss Twins-founded company have now reached 30% of its workforce since the start of the year, according to a report in Bloomberg. Gemini’s chief operating officer, chief financial officer and chief legal officer have also recently left the company. Additionally, the crypto exchange made an announcement saying the company will be deploying AI tools across the company in an effort to increase productivity across the entire enterprise.
In light of its poor stock performance recently, Gemini is also facing a class-action lawsuit from one of its investors, who claims the exchange did not properly disclose its pivot in business focus towards prediction markets. At the time of this writing, Gemini’s stock is down 84.72% since it was first listed in September of last year.
Other recent examples of crypto companies pointing to AI as the reasoning behind layoffs include crypto market data startup Messari and bitcoin-focused fintech company Block (formerly Square). According to a report in The Block, Messari’s CEO stepped down amidst layoffs that are part of the company’s restructuring into an “AI-first” business. Block also made headlines late last month as one of the first major tech companies to announce large layoffs as a result of further integration of AI into business processes.
Of course, many critics have wondered out loud if it is a coincidence that all of these layoffs due to AI are happening at crypto companies at the same time that the crypto asset market is a ways off of its all-time highs. Crypto startups have oftentimes laid off large portions of their respective staffs during previous crypto bear markets, and some have argued AI is being used as a scapegoat for the same sort of phenomenon taking place in the crypto industry once again.
There’s more but companies are being super sneaky about it
— Psychedelic El ₿arto (@PsychedelicBart) March 19, 2026
At the same time, a large number of bitcoin mining companies, such as Cango and Bitdeer, are also pivoting to AI in an effort to increase and diversify their sources of revenue. In some cases, mining companies have sold their entire stashes of bitcoin. Others have left the mining industry completely to focus on the higher profits available in AI.
That said, plenty of bitcoin mining companies are also simply diversifying the use of their data centers for additional revenue streams. According to James Cheng, who is the CFO at bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Canaan, bitcoin miners’ collective interest in AI makes sense, as there are synergies to be had between the two industries in terms of maximizing profitability and stabilizing the energy grids associated with these energy-intensive areas of focus. “The two businesses are in one ecosystem,” said Cheng. “It’s not competing with each other. It’s one plus the other.”
The falling bitcoin price has undoubtedly harmed the profits previously enjoyed by the mining industry, and the crypto asset has faced heavy criticism from analysts who have seen the past few months as a sign of bitcoin’s failure to live up to its touted potential as a safe haven asset in times of geopolitical uncertainty. However, bitcoin held up better in response to the beginning stages of the war in Iran than it did during increased tensions around Greenland.
All of this follows market dynamics from the past couple of years in which gold, which occupies a similar niche to bitcoin’s, with its “digital gold” narrative, has massively outperformed bitcoin itself. The recent bitcoin price decline in response to perceived hawkishness from the Fed has also further solidified this criticism, as this indicates that the crypto asset is still very much acting as a risk-on asset in the current environment.
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