alt Hacker NewsThe reality is that Coinbase earns on trading volume, and since we are in a crypto bear market, revenue is down. So they have to cut to keep the company profitable (or in line with what the investors expect).
While AI is likely a productivity boost, the underlying reason is not AI.
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Yeah AI is the perfect scapegoat for layoffs recently to soften the impact on stock price and investor confidence. Coinbase is obviously doing layoffs because they are strongly tethered to a stock market that is rattled by political conflict and economic uncertainty.
Indeed. COIN releases earnings on May 7 in the evening. Q4 2025 was the first quarter where they had a negative EPS in the past couple years. Most analyst estimates for Q1 2026 are trending downward. This "difficult decision" seems to be all about getting in front of a bad earnings release.
Oh yeah, AI is just an excuse to sell it to the public. But it's not about that at all. It's about bad leadership.
Isn't this what he says in the post? The first reason listed is market cycle not ai.
They're so tied to crypto that i'm surprised they haven't been tempted to diversify into other asset classes, or even yolo into prediction markets like robinhood did.
It would be slop, but the market would love it
Yes, I'm not buying this story about layoffs due to AI. It's a convenient excuse, which these companies seem to be getting away with too.
And something else I don't get about these AI related layoff announcements: if AI was a productivity boost wouldn't you hire more engineers and technical staff to capture the value? Or else you're basically saying "we're a tech company that has no idea what to do with more super-engineers".