Coinbase Grows Singapore Staff to 200 After Global Cuts

Coinbase is growing its Singapore office to about 200 employees by the end of 2026, up from roughly 150 today. The expansion lands three months after the crypto exchange cut 700 jobs worldwide, 14% of its staff, in the name of building what its chief executive calls an “AI-native” company.

That timing makes Singapore one of the few offices where Coinbase’s headcount keeps climbing. The company opened its new home at One Raffles Quay on Wednesday, and its country director is framing the move as a long-term wager on Asia’s stablecoin boom.

A Third More Staff at One Raffles Quay

Coinbase officially opened its Singapore office at One Raffles Quay on Wednesday, formalizing a hiring push already underway. Hassan Ahmed, the company’s Singapore country director, told The Business Times the strongest growth will land in engineering, customer service, relationship management and institutional sales.

Ahmed called Singapore “one of the world’s most trusted financial hubs and one of Coinbase’s fastest-growing international markets.” That means adding roughly 50 people to reach the 200 target, in the same year Coinbase cut 700 jobs everywhere else.

Fourteen Percent Gone in a Single Memo

The contrast starts with a memo. On May 5, Coinbase Global said it would cut about 700 employees, 14% of its workforce, citing market volatility and the push toward AI tools. CEO Brian Armstrong told staff the company needed to return to the speed of its startup founding, with AI at the core of how it operates.

The cuts came with a flatter org chart. Armstrong said leadership would cap management layers at five between top executives and everyone else, eliminate “pure managers,” and experiment with one-person teams that fold engineering, design and product work into a single role.

• 700 employees let go on May 5, 2026, about 14% of the company’s roughly 5,000-person workforce
• $50 million to $60 million in expected restructuring costs, mostly severance, disclosed in a securities filing
• Five layers maximum between top executives and Coinbase’s remaining 4,300 workers
• Managers must now double as individual contributors, with some overseeing 15 or more direct reports

Armstrong pointed to stablecoins, tokenization and prediction markets as the drivers of crypto’s next wave of adoption, according to CNBC. Coinbase, he said, was not stepping away from crypto, just changing how many people it takes to run the business.

From a Hiring Binge to a Downsizing

Coinbase was not shrinking a year ago. Global headcount rose 31% in 2025, climbing to 4,951 employees from 3,772 the year before. That followed a rockier 2023, when headcount fell 24% to 3,416 during a broader crypto slump.

May’s cut reversed that trajectory almost overnight. Singapore is the one line on the org chart still pointing up.

The percentages move in opposite directions inside the same twelve months. Singapore is the only row on that list getting bigger by year’s end.

Why Regulators Gave Singapore a Head Start

Coinbase secured a full Major Payment Institution license under Singapore’s Payment Services Act in October 2023, well before many rival jurisdictions had finished drafting their own rules. Ahmed said that head start still shapes where Coinbase puts its money.

“It was much ahead of other jurisdictions and hubs that were also vying to be digital asset hubs at that time,” Ahmed said. He also pointed to Singapore’s tax policy, capital inflows and general business climate as reasons the city-state keeps winning fresh investment.

This new office reflects our long-term confidence in Singapore as a strategic hub for innovation, talent, and responsible growth across the Asia-Pacific, giving us the resources to work more closely with local authorities, invest in talent and scale partnerships.

Ahmed said in the statement marking the office opening.

Other companies have made a similar calculation recently. Mobavenue AI Tech, an ad-tech firm that opened a Singapore unit on just $10,000 in capital, leaned on the same regulatory footing earlier this year.

Hong Kong and Dubai Want the Same Business

Hong Kong and Dubai are chasing the same institutional crypto business Singapore wants, using different regulatory playbooks. Hong Kong requires virtual asset platforms to hold a license outright, pairing that with a reverse solicitation safe harbor for foreign firms and a bridge to mainland China’s insurance market, worth an estimated $82 billion in potential crypto-linked capital.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the world’s first dedicated crypto regulator when it launched in 2022, updated its rulebooks in May 2025 to license firms by activity rather than blanket registration. The emirate pairs that with zero income tax and no capital gains tax.

Coinbase picked Singapore before this competition fully hardened. Ahmed’s comments suggest that early license is still paying off in hiring decisions three years later.

The Stablecoin Infrastructure Coinbase Is Underwriting

Singapore’s regulatory clarity is only half the pitch. The other half is stablecoins, digital tokens designed to hold a fixed value against a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar.

Coinbase supports the Singapore dollar-backed token XSGD through a partnership with StraitsX, a Singapore payments firm. It also runs Coinbase Business, which gives companies access to stablecoin payment infrastructure for settlement and cross-border transfers.

• XSGD carries a market cap near $15.5 million on Coinbase’s own tracker
• Combined with its dollar-pegged sibling XUSD, the two StraitsX tokens have processed more than $18 billion in on-chain transaction volume
• XSGD is issued one to one under MAS oversight, with more than 70% market share across Southeast Asian exchanges

StraitsX publishes monthly reserve attestation reports from an ISCA-listed auditing firm, the kind of transparency Singapore has pushed stablecoin issuers toward since finalizing its framework.

Which Jobs Survive Coinbase’s AI-Native Shift?

Coinbase’s Singapore hires cluster in roles that depend on local trust and regulatory access: engineering, customer service, relationship management and institutional sales. The company’s global cuts hit management layers and functions it says AI tools can now absorb. The split shows where human judgment still outweighs automation inside Coinbase’s operating model.

Coinbase is shrinking its global engineering structure into one-person teams that fold design and product work into a single role. Singapore’s engineering hires point the other way, expanding a function that also touches partnerships, integrations and enterprise clients across Asia.

Relationship management and institutional sales do not compress well into an AI-native pod. Deals with banks, regulators and enterprise clients still run through people who show up in person, something Coinbase acknowledged by opening a physical office rather than hiring remotely.

Singapore’s financial institutions are running a parallel experiment of their own. Bank of Singapore has spent recent months rewiring its compliance operations around AI and risk culture, a sign the city’s banks are automating internal processes even as they compete for the same crypto-savvy talent Coinbase is chasing.

Coinbase’s hiring target runs through the end of 2026, the same deadline Armstrong set for finishing the company’s AI-native restructuring everywhere else.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and stablecoin markets are volatile and lightly regulated in many jurisdictions; consult a licensed financial professional before making decisions. Figures are accurate as of publication in July 2026.