Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has cut approximately 150 employees from a workforce of around 3,000, according to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter. The company attributed the reductions to AI deployments that have improved operational efficiency, with further cuts not currently planned.
Kraken declined to address the specific layoffs but said it regularly reviews its structure to ensure it has the right team in place to serve customers and grow. The 150 figure represents roughly 5% of the company’s total headcount.
The cuts arrive as Payward’s IPO timeline continues to shift. The company filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC in November 2025 but paused the process in March, citing market conditions. Sources now indicate a public listing may slip to 2027. At Consensus Miami this month, co-CEO Arjun Sethi said Payward is “about 80% ready” to go public, and the company is reported to be seeking fresh private capital at a valuation of approximately $20 billion.
The tension between that figure and the current cuts is worth noting. Payward has been on an aggressive acquisition run: NinjaTrader, the US futures platform, went for $1.5 billion in 2025; Bitnomial, a digital asset derivatives exchange, for $550 million; and Reap Technologies, a stablecoin payments firm, for up to $600 million. That is approximately $2.65 billion in acquisitions in the past year, alongside headcount reduction and a delayed listing.
The AI rationale places Payward in a growing pattern across the crypto industry. On the same day, blockchain data platform Dune cut 25% of its staff. Co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga framed the move as a product pivot rather than financial distress, pointing to Dune MCP, a tool launched in March that lets teams and AI agents query onchain data without writing SQL. Ten days earlier, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced cuts of roughly 14% — approximately 700 employees — and described rebuilding the exchange as an “intelligence” operating through AI-native pods, with humans at the edges rather than in the middle of every workflow.
Whether AI is genuinely driving these decisions or serving as a convenient frame is a question that has gained traction. Sam Altman of OpenAI has warned of “AI washing” — attributing unrelated layoffs to AI to position reductions as strategic progress rather than retreat. Payward has offered little detail beyond the broad efficiency argument. What is clear is that the AI justification has become the standard register for crypto headcount announcements in 2026, and Payward is the latest to reach for it.