The job cuts in India were much lower than the global average of about 18%, a senior executive at the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange said. 

See related article: Coinbase, biggest US crypto exchange, cuts workforce by 18%

Fast facts

  • The largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in the U.S. Wednesday said about 8% of its India team was let go as part of Coinbase’s global layoffs. 
  • The job cuts were much lower than the global average of about 18%, Pankaj Gupta, Coinbase vice president of engineering for India, said on his verified Twitter handle. “In addition, we will continue to build for the world out of our India tech hub.”
  • “India remains one of our top market priorities where we will continue to invest in product and engineering teams to work together with our business teams,” Gupta said. 
  • Despite the job cuts, Coinbase said it hired Arnab Kumar to oversee market expansion in India.
  • In April, Coinbase said it planned to hire over 1,000 employees in India this year in addition to the existing 300 people at its tech hub in the country.
  • But the company’s ambitious plans for India hit a roadblock after the Reserve Bank of India yanked support for purchasing cryptocurrencies from a ubiquitous payments platform backed by it.

See related article: Coinbase snafu sets the cat among the crypto pigeons in India