Crypto exchange Coinbase lays off around 15 employees: Report

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reportedly laid off over a dozen of its employees.

In a report, Yahoo Finance said that the company, with a headcount of around 550 employees, has cut a handful of staffers in its customer support, compliance, and fraud departments last week. Coinbase, while it confirmed the layoffs, did not confirm the number of employees it dismissed.

Sources told Yahoo Finance that more than 15 people have been laid off.

Coinbase has made a number of new appointments which includes Jeff Horowitz as chief compliance officer, Tim Wagner as vice president of engineering, Michael Li as VP of data, among others. More recently, Chris Dodds, who serves on the Board of Directors of The Charles Schwab Corporation and as a senior private equity advisor, has joined the company’s Board of Directors.

Tina Bhatnagar, who was hired this year to oversee customer services, wants the customer service staff to be centralized in Coinbase’s offices, sources said. As such, the support staff at remote locations were let go, although some were offered the chance to relocate to a Coinbase office.

“We’ve learned that certain teams who are co-located are more efficient, effective, and happier in their roles. So moving forward, some teams—including Support, Fraud, and Compliance—will only hire employees into Coinbase offices,” Coinbase told Yahoo Finance, adding that it will “continue to be open to remote employees” for jobs that are “hard to fill locally to an office.”

Earlier this month, reports suggested that the company is finalizing a deal with Tiger Global which would bring its valuation to $8 billion. In a recent tweet, CNBC’s Ran NeuNer, the host of CryptoTrader on CNBC Africa, has claimed that Coinbase is planning its own Initial Public Offering (IPO).