By Why Is Uphold Cutting Its Workforce?
Crypto trading platform Uphold has reduced its global workforce by roughly 17% as it redirects staff and investment toward its enterprise services business.
The restructuring affected 85 people, including permanent employees and contractors across several regions. Uphold said the decision followed weaker retail crypto trading activity during the recent market downturn rather than plans to close offices or withdraw from international markets.
“We’re recalibrating after several years of extraordinary growth, during which we nearly doubled our headcount,” CEO Simon McLoughlin said in emailed comments. “Despite the current slowdown in crypto trading activity, we’ve never been more confident in the prospects for digital assets and blockchain technology.”
Uphold said its U.K. operations and other international offices remain open, fully staffed and operational. The cuts are intended to move resources toward business lines where demand is growing rather than reduce the company to a smaller geographic footprint.
The decision reflects a difficult operating environment for retail-focused crypto platforms. Lower trading activity reduces transaction-fee revenue, forcing companies to reconsider staffing levels and prioritize services that generate steadier income.
Why Is Uphold Focusing on Enterprise Services?
Founded in 2015 and based in New York City, Uphold operates a multi-asset platform that allows retail and institutional customers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, equities and precious metals through a single account.
The company has also developed infrastructure that enables banks, fintech companies and broker-dealers to add crypto trading and custody services to their own products. Uphold said that enterprise operation is growing rapidly and now warrants a larger share of its personnel and investment.
Enterprise services can provide a different revenue profile from consumer trading. Retail activity often rises and falls with token prices and investor sentiment, while infrastructure agreements with financial companies may generate longer-term commercial relationships and more predictable transaction volumes.
Uphold can also expand indirectly through enterprise clients. Instead of acquiring every customer through its own app, it can supply the technology behind digital asset products offered by banks, brokers and financial applications with established user bases.
Investor Takeaway
Uphold is reducing its dependence on retail trading fees and directing more resources toward crypto infrastructure for financial institutions. The strategy could produce steadier revenue, but its success will depend on converting enterprise demand into durable contracts and higher transaction activity.
How Did the Crypto Downturn Affect the Business?
The layoffs follow three consecutive quarterly declines in the total cryptocurrency market value, which fell to about $2.1 trillion at the end of the second quarter. Trading volumes weakened as retail participation slowed under pressure from higher interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty and sustained withdrawals from crypto exchange-traded funds.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined $6.9 billion in net outflows during May and June. Flows improved in July, including a six-day run of inflows, but the recovery remained small compared with the withdrawals recorded during the wider downturn.
For platforms such as Uphold, weaker market activity affects more than token prices. Lower trading volumes can reduce spreads, transaction fees and customer engagement, while fixed costs related to compliance, custody, technology and customer support remain.
The restructuring suggests Uphold expects retail activity to recover eventually but does not want its near-term cost structure to depend on a rapid rebound. Reallocating resources toward enterprise products gives the company another route to growth while consumer trading remains subdued.
What Is Uphold Planning for Its Retail App?
Despite the workforce reduction, Uphold said it remains confident in the long-term retail market and plans to expand its consumer application into a wider financial platform during 2026.
“In 2026, we’re expanding our popular consumer app into a multi-asset, blockchain-enabled financial companion,” McLoughlin said.
He said the app is expected to offer U.S. stocks, tokenized securities, asset-backed lending, credit cards, prediction markets and additional decentralized finance yield opportunities by the end of the year. The planned products include yield services linked to assets such as XRP.
The expansion would move Uphold beyond its core role as a crypto trading venue. Stocks, lending, cards and prediction markets could increase the number of services used by each customer and reduce reliance on spot cryptocurrency trading alone.
That plan also carries execution and regulatory costs. Products such as tokenized securities, credit services and prediction markets can fall under different legal frameworks, requiring licenses, compliance controls and local restrictions across the markets where Uphold operates.
The company said further growth announcements are expected in the coming months. Investors and industry participants will be watching whether those updates involve new enterprise partnerships, product launches or both, as Uphold tries to expand institutional infrastructure while rebuilding its retail offering around a broader range of financial services.