Bitwise Cuts 14% of Staff as Its Own CIO Calls a Bitcoin Bottom

A Tough Stretch for Crypto’s Asset Managers

Bitwise Asset Administration, one of many largest crypto-focused asset managers in the US, has laid off roughly 14% of its workers, in accordance with Bloomberg.

The discount comes as a chronic stoop in digital-asset costs has compelled companies throughout the business to chop prices, regardless that Bitwise itself just lately surpassed $15 billion in consumer belongings, up from about $11 billion in April (suggesting the cuts are about value self-discipline relatively than shrinking enterprise).

The transfer additionally stands in distinction to Bitwise’s trajectory simply 18 months in the past. In February 2025, the agency raised $70 million from buyers to develop its crew and roll out new crypto merchandise. That enlargement drive has now reversed as market circumstances soured via 2026, even because the agency retains increasing its product lineup elsewhere, together with a spot XRP ETF launched on the NYSE and filings for 11 further single-token ETFs tied to tokens similar to Hyperliquid, Sui, Close to and Aave.

Bitwise Isn’t Alone within the Cutbacks

The layoffs place Bitwise alongside a rising record of digital-asset companies trimming workers this 12 months as Coinbase additionally minimize 14% of its workforce earlier in 2026, and exchanges Gemini, Crypto.com and Kraken have all introduced reductions because the business’s job market struggles to get well.

Trackers have counted greater than 7,254 disclosed job cuts throughout 47 firms thus far this 12 months, a determine the positioning’s researchers say doubtless understates the true complete since many firm disclosures omit concrete headcount stats.

A big chunk of the stress traces again to bitcoin’s uneven worth motion in latest months, a lot of which was compounded (not in worth motion alone) just lately when a firmware flaw rooted in a 2021 Coldcard software program replace drained roughly $116 million from hundreds of addresses throughout 4 separate waves beginning July 30.

Anticipated to reach the identical week, the CLARITY Act additionally stalled within the Senate forward of its August recess. And whereas bitcoin absorbed each occasions and not using a sharp directional transfer, the prolonged uncertainty has weighed on buying and selling volumes and, by extension, asset supervisor income.

The CIO Sees It In another way: ‘We’re Bottoming’

Whereas Bitwise decreased its worker rely, the agency’s chief funding officer (CIO), Matt Hougan, informed reporters a distinct story about the place bitcoin’s worth is headed, stating that he believes the market is “within the strategy of bottoming proper now,” pointing to a collapse in extra leverage throughout crypto derivatives markets, funding charges turning decisively destructive, amongst different elements.

Hougan has made variations of this backside name earlier than. Again in July, he argued the underside was nearer than ever, pointing to volatility in Technique’s most popular inventory, bitcoin buying and selling under key technical ranges, and excessive readings on the Concern and Greed Index as indicators of a leverage flush relatively than a collapse in demand.

His newest feedback add a contemporary knowledge level as stablecoin provide (typically learn as dry powder ready to enter crypto markets) hit a file $322 billion earlier this 12 months, bigger than the overseas foreign money reserves of 95 nations.

Hougan additionally pointed to normalizing exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows as an indication that institutional promoting stress is easing, arguing the market is pricing bear-market circumstances onto an business roughly twice the dimensions it was on the final cycle’s backside.

The following actual check for Hougan’s assertions arrives in September, when the Senate is anticipated to revisit the CLARITY Act, giving merchants one other catalyst to measure towards his bottoming thesis.