Bitwise Asset Management has eliminated roughly 14% of its workforce, reducing headcount to about 155 people from around 180, the San Francisco-based crypto asset manager confirmed to Bloomberg this week. The cut marks the first major staff reset among the issuers who launched U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, and lands as Bitcoin trades near $64,000, down close to half from its October 2025 record in a downturn that has now run roughly ten months.
Chief executive Hunter Horsley framed the layoffs against the firm’s longer trajectory, telling Bloomberg that even after the reduction Bitwise’s staff is the largest in the company’s eight-year history. He said he expects growth to continue as crypto is absorbed into the broader financial system. The company continues to manage about $9 billion in client assets across more than 70 products, spanning spot Bitcoin and other ETFs, separately managed accounts, private funds, hedge fund strategies and staking services.
The ETF Issuer Landscape Has Concentrated Sharply
Bitwise’s $2.3 billion spot Bitcoin ETF holds less than 3% of the segment. According to SoSoValue, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively hold about $77.5 billion in net assets, with BlackRock’s IBIT alone accounting for roughly $47.3 billion and Fidelity’s FBTC another $10.9 billion. That concentration has left mid-tier issuers competing for a shrinking slice of a contracting pie. Several smaller funds have already exited the category: Hashdex wound down its spot Bitcoin ETF earlier this year, and others have converted or merged products as net flows turned negative through much of the summer.
The pressure on issuers reflects both the price action and a broader rotation in retail capital. Bitcoin has struggled to reclaim momentum even as traditional finance allocators have rotated toward equities. A Wintermute report citing JPMorgan data found speculative money has steadily moved into stocks since late 2024, while CoinGecko’s second-quarter report showed spot volume across the ten largest centralized exchanges falling 27.9% to $1.95 trillion and total crypto market capitalization dropping 12.6%. Barclays analysts have described prediction markets, where notional volume rose 48.7% to a record $113.8 billion in the second quarter, as “retail’s shiny new toy.”
Bitwise Joins a Lengthening List of Layoffs and Shutdowns
Bitwise is not alone. Coinbase cut 14% of its workforce in May, with chief executive Brian Armstrong citing both the market downturn and the speed at which AI had changed how the company operates. Prime broker FalconX let go roughly 10% of staff at the start of August, with about half of its Singapore workforce affected, and is withdrawing a license application in the city-state to refocus on derivatives. Two exchanges have gone further, shutting down entirely: BitMEX, which invented the perpetual swap in 2016, announced last month it will close on September 23 after more than eleven years. BitMart followed days later, winding down a nine-year-old platform.
Despite the contraction, Bitwise’s own executives remain optimistic. Chief investment officer Matt Hougan told Bloomberg Television this week that the market may be at the bottom of its crypto winter, and argued that the recent Coldcard exploit, which has drained more than $100 million from self-custody wallets, strengthens the case for holding Bitcoin through a regulated ETF wrapper. That argument has limits, however: net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have been negative on many days this summer, and issuers have responded by cutting expense ratios and boosting issuer-backed distribution deals to defend asset bases.
What the Slowdown Means for Ether and Next-Generation Filings
The reset among Bitcoin ETF issuers is now rippling into the spot ether category, which has lagged its Bitcoin counterpart since launch. Ether ETFs have seen thinner flows and several issuers have shelved plans for additional ether products. Filings for so-called next-generation funds, including those proposing to hold staking rewards, diversified baskets of tokens, or derivatives-based strategies, have stalled at the Securities and Exchange Commission as staff resources tighten and issuers wait for clearer guidance.
For Bitwise specifically, the staff reduction signals a recognition that the post-launch growth curve has flattened. The firm still operates more than 70 products and remains one of the most diversified crypto asset managers, but its $2.3 billion Bitcoin ETF now competes in a category where two issuers control more than 75% of assets. Horsley’s framing, that the remaining team is the largest in the company’s history and growth will resume as crypto integrates with the wider economy, sets up the next eighteen months as a test of whether mid-tier ETF issuers can survive the concentration that the spot ETF era has produced. Bitwise’s cuts, modest in absolute terms, are likely to be read by competitors and regulators as the first concrete signal that the crypto ETF industry’s launch phase is over and a longer, leaner consolidation has begun, with Bitwise now at the center of that reset.
The contraction at Bitwise fits a wider pattern taking shape across crypto ETF issuers, many of which expanded quickly to win share in the first year of spot products and are now paring back to match the slower revenue environment. With fee income tied closely to assets and assets increasingly concentrated, operating costs are being reset to reflect post-launch economics rather than the more optimistic projections that shaped early staffing decisions.