Crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company Payward has decided to reduce its workforce, becoming the latest in the crypto world to announce layoffs.
According to reports on Friday, Payward is cutting 150 jobs, making nearly 5 percent of its 3000 person global workforce redundant. The move comes as the firm optimises its operations ahead of the planned IPO.
Payward’s layoffs come against the backdrop of a larger wave of disruption in the crypto industry, with behemoths like Coinbase and Crypto.com also reducing their workforce. Dune announced a massive layoff just a day ahead, with other industry peers like Cloudflare.
Latest job cuts not the first for Payward
The most recent round of layoffs at Payward does not come as an isolated incident but represents another step in the company’s larger ongoing process of restructuring, which began back in October 2024 when Payward laid off around 400 of its employees, some 15 percent of its total workforce.
The October layoff represented the first instance of major restructuring for the firm.
The frequency of such incidents increased following the appointment of Arjun Sethi as co-chief executive alongside David Ripley. In early 2025, employees saw another round of layoffs take place as the company sought to combine overlapping departments and streamline its increasingly complicated internal processes.
Even with the cuts, hiring hasn’t stopped completely. The company is still adding talent in areas it sees as high-growth, including derivatives trading, payments infrastructure and tokenized assets, suggesting a more selective approach rather than a broad pullback.
More generally, this kind of workforce reshaping has become fairly common in the crypto industry ahead of potential public listings. By trimming costs and tightening operations, firms aim to improve profitability and present a more efficient, disciplined profile that tends to matter a lot once they enter public markets.
Latest layoffs come ahead of IPO
The mass firing is taking place amid efforts by the organization to take its shares public. In November 2025, Payward filed an S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States.
According to previous reports, Payward intends to enter the market with a valuation of almost $20 billion. The filing represented a huge move towards the much-awaited initial public offering from the cryptocurrency exchange operator.
Nevertheless, Payward made the decision to delay its IPO process in March 2026 due to the weak performance displayed by recently IPOed cryptocurrency companies.
This, in addition to the market uncertainty, has made investors less enthusiastic about the whole industry. However, the co-CEO of Payward, Arjun Sethi, commented that the firm is “roughly 80 percent ready” to be listed.
At the same time, Payward has continued pushing ahead with expansion plans through acquisitions. The company acquired NinjaTrader to strengthen its derivatives business and also moved to acquire Reap Technologies as part of its broader push into stablecoin-based payment infrastructure.
Around the same period as the SEC filing, Payward completed an $800 million funding round that reinforced the company’s targeted $20 billion valuation.
The billion dollar valuation remains central to current IPO discussions. The financing round included substantial backing from traditional finance investors through secondary share purchases.
Kraken job cut in tandem with other market peers
The Kraken parent’s job cuts come at a time when major players in the industry have also followed suit. Some of the big players in the industry that have already made layoff announcements include Coinbase, where 14 percent of staff members were let go, Crypto.com, with 12 percent of its employees being let go, and Gemini, where the workforce has been cut down by about 30 percent.
Although the adverse market conditions have been one of the reasons for layoffs in certain companies, cost-cutting seems to be the overarching goal for most companies.
Apart from the aim of reducing expenses, firms are also focusing on establishing companies that focus on AI-based products and efficiency in the long run.
Earlier this year, Blockworks and DL News closed their newsrooms as they moved towards creating products based on data and research.
Furthermore, not just the crypto space but fintech companies like Block have also seen layoffs, with the firms citing efficiencies brought on by AI-based tools.