The prolonged crypto bear market continues to reshape the digital asset industry. With market volatility continuing to hit hard, crypto firms are now being pushed to rethink their business models beyond trading revenues.
While some companies such as BitMEX, BitMart have shut down operations altogether, others are others are trimming their workforce. They’re now pivoting toward businesses expected to generate more stable, long-term revenue.
The latest is crypto exchange and payments platform Uphold. Its CEO Simon McLoughlin announced on Monday that the company has reduced its workforce by 17% to better align its cost base with current market conditions.
“After several years of extraordinary growth, during which we almost doubled our headcount, we needed to adapt to today’s much more subdued market,” McLoughlin wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Despite the layoffs, the CEO said his conviction in blockchain technology and digital assets “has never been stronger”. He instead outlined an aggressive roadmap centered on institutional crypto infrastructure and multi-asset financial services.
What is Uphold’s Next Plan
The workforce reduction comes as Uphold accelerates its transformation from a crypto exchange into a digital asset infrastructure provider.
McLoughlin revealed that the company has already signed 10 infrastructure partnerships this year. It now operates a liquidity network connected to 32 crypto exchanges.
Uphold is increasingly transitioning into an enterprise-grade company. The company’s focus is now set to remain on providing crypto infra to banks, brokers, fintechs, exchanges and payment companies for digital asset services. This comes as banks and tradfi giants such as Charles Schwab are expanding aggresively into digital assets.
Its embedded finance business has already added more than 3 million new accounts. That’s a figure the company expects to grow further as regulatory clarity improves across the United States. Currently, CLARITY Act is put on hold by senate to focus on other priority bills.
Recent Enterprise Expansion by Uphold
Uphold has steadily expanded its enterprise footprint over the past year.
Uphold offers API-based services covering trading, custody, liquidity, fiat on-and-off ramps and payments. This doesn’t requiring financial institutions to build blockchain infrastructure from scratch,
The company has also expanded its Topper fiat on-ramp solution. Topper enables wallets, decentralized applications and fintech platforms to embed crypto purchases directly into their products.
Most recently, Bitcoin mining platform GoMining integrated Uphold Platform Services (UPS). It allows its users access to regulated fiat on- and off-ramps, crypto trading and custody through a single infrastructure layer.
Earlier this year, Uphold also strengthened its European expansion by acquiring a Germany-based digital asset infrastructure company licensed by BaFin. This provides the firm with both MiCA and MiFID regulatory permissions to operate across the European Union.
Expanding Beyond Crypto Trading
Alongside its enterprise strategy, Uphold is broadening its consumer platform into a multi-asset financial application.
The company recently launched fractional trading for more than 4,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs, allowing users to invest in traditional equities alongside cryptocurrencies.
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McLoughlin said the platform is designed to make different asset classes seamlessly interchangeable. Once fully rolled out, customers will be able to convert assets such as Tesla shares into Bitcoin or Dogecoin into Berkshire Hathaway stock through a single transaction.
Uphold’s further roadmap also includes tokenized securities, asset-backed lending, credit cards, prediction markets and enhanced DeFi yield products.
Thus. for Uphold, the 17% workforce reduction appears less like a retreat from crypto. It is more like a strategic reallocation toward becoming the infrastructure layer powering the next generation of digital asset financial services.
Sneha Agrawal 
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