This year alone, 5,000 virtual asset jobs disappeared… Dune cuts 25% of workforce as industry chill continues

▲ Bitcoin bear market ©

Dune, a leader in virtual asset data analysis, has carried out a significant restructuring, cutting 25% of its total workforce to focus on core products and operational efficiency, accelerating the employment chill in the industry due to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

According to investment media FXStreet on May 15 (local time), Dune co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga announced that the company laid off 25% of its team members this week to sharpen its business focus on core data products. The exact scale of Dune's layoffs, which employs approximately 150 people according to LinkedIn, was not disclosed, but this decision is interpreted as a strategic choice to concentrate capabilities on the core infrastructure that thousands of customers rely on. CEO Haga added that the company still has sufficient capital and will devote its efforts to integrating AI technology and increasing institutional investors' interest in virtual assets in the future.

Dune's layoffs are an extension of the widespread mass layoffs across the virtual asset and tech industries. This year alone, over 5,000 jobs have disappeared from major virtual asset companies, reflecting the dual nature of AI technology in both increasing work efficiency and replacing human labor. On May 5, Coinbase cut 700 employees, 14% of its total workforce, citing increased AI utilization, and cryptocurrency news outlet DL News even closed down due to reduced exposure to AI-based search results, intensifying the industry's survival competition.

Dune is accelerating the introduction of Model Context Protocol (MCP), which enables AI to build dashboards and workflows without knowledge of data infrastructure or the programming language SQL. CEO Haga plans to continue significant investments in institutional data services, aligning with the trend of all assets, including currency, stocks, bonds, and commodities, moving on-chain. This appears to be a calculation to preempt the institutional-grade financial infrastructure market through technological innovation via AI, beyond simple cost reduction.

The largest layoffs in the virtual asset industry this year were carried out by Block Inc., which laid off 4,000 employees, half of its total workforce, in February. Gemini and Crypto.com also reduced their workforces by 200 and 180 employees, respectively, citing efficiency improvements through AI adoption. Statistics show that in 2026 alone, approximately 109,000 employees lost their jobs at 137 tech companies in the United States, indicating a widespread reorganization of the employment market due to technological inflection points.

In conclusion, Dune's restructuring symbolizes the rapid shift of the virtual asset data market from a labor-intensive model to an AI-centric, technology-intensive model. At a time when institutional demand for major assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP (Ripple) is growing, data companies like Dune streamlining operations and strengthening AI capabilities are seen as a survival strategy to gain leadership in the future era of on-chain finance. Investors are watching whether these companies' organizational improvements will serve as an opportunity to enhance the technological completeness of the virtual asset ecosystem.

*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only, and we are not responsible for investment losses based on it. The content should be interpreted for informational purposes only.*