Crypto Market Update: Coinbase Slashes Workforce, Strategy Considers Bitcoin Sale

Ether (ETH) was priced at US$2,348.18, down by 1 percent over the last 24 hours.

Altcoin price update

• XRP (XRP) was priced at US$1.43, up by 1.1 percent over 24 hours.

• Solana (SOL) was trading at US$89.19, trading 3.1 percent higher over the past 24 hours.

Today's crypto news to know

Coinbase slashes 14 percent of workforce

Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (Global NASDAQ:COIN) is laying off roughly 14 percent of its workforce, impacting about 700 employees as the firm restructures to navigate sluggish market conditions.

CEO Brian Armstrong detailed the harsh cuts in a company-wide email that was later shared on X, citing the convergence of a cyclical crypto downturn and massive leaps in artificial intelligence (AI).

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

To capitalize on these extreme efficiencies, the company is fundamentally 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 actively contribute as hands-on player-coaches alongside their teams.

Furthermore, the exchange is experimenting with hyper-concentrated "AI-native pods," floating the idea of single-person teams where one employee acts as an engineer, designer and product manager all at once.

Laid-off workers in the US are receiving a comprehensive severance package that includes 16 weeks of base pay, equity vesting and continuous healthcare coverage.

Coinbase isn't the only crypto heavyweight citing AI as a catalyst for downsizing. Industry rivals like Crypto.com and Gemini have also recently reduced their headcounts 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 had previously collaborated on a compliant, on‑chain S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) fund. The new deal is meant to scale that model out 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 from scratch. 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).

Strategy abandons "diamond hands" policy

Corporate Bitcoin whale Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) has walked back its famous "never sell" 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.

This reversal comes on the heels of a US$12.54 billion net loss for the quarter, largely fueled by a $US14.46 billion unrealized hit on its massive digital asset portfolio. Strategy currently holds a staggering 818,334 BTC — amounting to about 4 percent of the global supply — but that aggressive hoarding strategy has generated around US$1.5 billion in annual liabilities from debt interest and preferred stock dividends.

To service those massive financial commitments, CEO Phong Le and Executive Chair Michael Saylor confirmed that selling portions of Strategy's stash is now a highly viable option.

Saylor likened the new approach to a real estate development firm, where the company leverages credit to acquire prime assets, allows them to appreciate and then selectively sells them off to fund operations.

The executive explicitly noted that the company will likely sell some coins soon just to "inoculate the market" and prove that the firm's capital structure remains agile.

Ripple distributes North Korean hacker intel to strengthen industry defenses

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

The shared data provides enriched profiles of suspected IT workers attempting to infiltrate crypto companies, along with specific wallet addresses and active indicators of compromise.

Security experts are raising alarms as state-sponsored operatives from the Lazarus Group abandon quick technical exploits in favor of incredibly patient, months-long social engineering campaigns.

This shift in tactics 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 sparking intense legal friction within the decentralized finance community. Lending protocol Aave filed a federal court memorandum demanding the release of US$71 million caught in that Arbitrum freeze, arguing the funds rightfully belong to its users rather than the hackers.

ZEC price jumps after Multicoin tweet

ZEC, the native privacy token for ZCash, has seen big moves over the last 24 hours. It was up by over 20 percent at the time of this writing, having retraced from an earlier 30 percent peak.

The price pump occurred after Multicoin Capital posted on X that it has been building a large ZEC position since around February. It sees ZEC as insurance against governments coming after visible wealth.

Zcash is a token that allows users to choose whether to make their transactions fully private instead of visible on-chain. By Multicoin’s framing, Zcash is the purest public market asset that combines privacy, censorship resistance and seizure resistance at once.