Uphold cut 85 jobs, or 17% of staff, as it pivots from retail multi-asset platform to selling crypto API infrastructure to banks. CEO Simon McLoughlin says institutional demand is rising, but no client names or revenue numbers were disclosed.
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Uphold cut roughly 85 employees and contractors, about 17% of its global workforce. CEO Simon McLoughlin tied the layoffs directly to a strategic shift. The company is moving away from its original retail multi-asset model – crypto, fiat currencies, precious metals under one roof – toward selling digital asset infrastructure to banks, fintechs, and broker-dealers.
Financial institutions want crypto trading and custody capabilities fast, McLoughlin said. They do not want to build compliance teams and custody infrastructure from scratch. Uphold's enterprise business lets them plug into a single API. The pitch is landing. Demand from banks is rising sharply, he added.
Uphold said it still plans to expand its consumer app. By the end of 2026 it intends to add US stocks, tokenized securities, asset-backed lending, and prediction markets. That is an ambitious roadmap for a company that just cut nearly a fifth of its staff. Tokenized securities and prediction markets are not easy products to build and regulate. Asset-backed lending carries its own compliance weight. Adding US stocks means navigating broker-dealer rules.
Building regulated crypto infrastructure is expensive and legally complicated. Most banks would rather license someone else's stack, slap their brand on it, and move. API-based and white-label solutions fill that gap. Uphold is not alone in chasing this money. Several other crypto firms have shifted toward institutional infrastructure over the past few years, betting that real growth lies in powering financial institutions rather than retail trading volumes. Stablecoin rails, custody APIs, and digital asset brokerage tools are all areas where demand has been building.
The workforce reduction is a reallocation, not a retreat, the company said. Personnel and budget are moving toward enterprise infrastructure. Which specific teams absorbed the cuts was not disclosed.
McLoughlin framed enterprise contracts as stickier and more predictable than retail trading fees, which bounce around with market sentiment. If Uphold can lock in a handful of bank clients on multi-year deals, that revenue could cover a lot of consumer product development. Sales cycles are long. Consumer product teams need attention. Doing both well with fewer people is hard.
Securitize recently gained SEC adviser status as it pushes into tokenized assets. Uphold's consumer ambitions include tokenized securities and prediction markets, products that require navigating regulation and building trust.
McLoughlin did not disclose a revenue number for the enterprise business or name any current bank clients. No deal count, no user figures, no annual recurring revenue. The company is asking the market to trust the direction. A named client or a specific revenue figure would give the pivot credibility.
Without that, the pivot remains a story about a pivot. Eighty-five people lost their jobs on that bet.
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