Bitcoin Suisse will cut up to 60 of its 120 jobs in Switzerland as the crypto financial services firm moves software development and back-office work to cheaper hubs abroad. The company confirmed the restructuring on Friday, hours after Swiss outlet Finews reported the plans.
The Zug-based firm, founded in 2013 by Niklas Nikolajsen and other early bitcoin enthusiasts, was among the first brokers in what became Crypto Valley. It now employs around 200 people globally. Alongside the Swiss cuts, it is closing its IT development site in Copenhagen. Back-office roles will shift to an existing hub in Bratislava, Slovakia, and to a new site in Vietnam that the company plans to build from scratch over the coming years.
The cuts take effect after a consultation period running until September 20, and the first layoffs are expected before the end of 2026, according to the company.
From crypto specialist to wealth manager
Chief executive Andrej Majcen, who took over as group CEO, framed the move as a change of course rather than a retreat. In a statement, he said software development and back-office capabilities would be consolidated in international hubs to allow the firm to scale faster, reach broader talent pools and invest more effectively in its future offering.
“In the past, our focus was mainly on Switzerland. Now international growth is our priority. Building on our extensive crypto experience, we want to offer international clients a broad range of wealth and asset management services. That offering goes beyond crypto.”
The company told staff the decision was not belt-tightening in response to weakness in crypto markets. It points instead to an ambition to become a global wealth and asset management platform, a business where it would compete with established private banks rather than other crypto brokers. Majcen repeated the argument in the foreword to the Crypto Wealth Management Report 2026, citing growing client demand for broader and more sophisticated digital asset solutions.
Bitcoin Suisse holds more than $3 billion in digital assets under custody and offers trading, staking and lending. This year it secured licenses in Liechtenstein and Bermuda, and its Middle East subsidiary received formal regulatory approval in Abu Dhabi in July. The regulatory footprint matters: a firm licensed across three jurisdictions can serve clients who cannot be reached from a Swiss base alone, and each license widens the product range the group can offer without new applications.
Cost logic behind the move
Running back-office and development functions from Slovakia and Vietnam could deliver significant savings, Majcen said, without giving figures. The pattern is familiar across financial services: regulated client-facing work stays in the home jurisdiction while processing and engineering move to lower-cost locations.
Vietnam has become a growing destination for technology operations, and the company said it expects the new hub to expand gradually. Bratislava is familiar ground; the group has operated there since at least September 2025, when it appointed Peter Camenzind as CEO of Bitcoin Suisse AG and pointed to its Copenhagen and Bratislava offices in the same announcement.
| Site | Status | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Zug, Switzerland | Remains HQ, up to 60 jobs cut | Client-facing, regulated work |
| Bratislava, Slovakia | Expanding | Back-office, development |
| Vietnam | New hub, built from scratch | Back-office, development |
| Copenhagen, Denmark | Closing | IT development |
The consultation outcome will determine the exact number of departures. Up to half the Swiss workforce is at stake, which makes this one of the larger restructurings among Europe’s first-generation crypto firms. Staff at the Zug headquarters learned of the plans at an internal meeting earlier this month, according to Finews. The company has not published its own press release on the cuts, leaving the Swiss report and the consultation notice as the main public record.
What it says about the maturing market
Bitcoin Suisse started as a broker for early bitcoin holders and grew into a regulated financial group. Its pivot toward wealth management mirrors moves by larger players. As buying and selling crypto becomes a commodity with thin margins, profit shifts to custody scale, lending and advisory services, where long-term client relationships rather than token listings win business.
The same logic explains the choice of destinations. Slovakia offers European time zones and a talent pool already serving the group. Vietnam offers lower costs and a deep technology labor market, which is why it has become a standard destination for back-office operations across financial services. A firm paying Swiss salaries for processing work competes at a structural disadvantage against banks that moved those functions years ago.
The firm still faces the practical test of relocating institutional-grade operations without disrupting custody clients. Migration of core systems carries operational risk, and regulators in Liechtenstein, Bermuda and Abu Dhabi will want assurances that oversight of client assets does not weaken as functions move abroad. The company has given no timeline for completing the Vietnam hub, and no figure for expected savings beyond Majcen’s description of them as significant.
Employees in Zug, for their part, have a ten-day consultation window to respond before any decision is final. Swiss employment law requires the consultation before notice periods begin, and the first departures are expected before the end of the year. Unions and works councils are unlikely to play a large role here; most of the affected roles are administrative and the firm is not heavily unionized, so individual negotiations will shape the outcome more than collective bargaining.
For Crypto Valley, the message is uncomfortable but familiar. The engineering and administrative layer of crypto finance is following the path of every other financial back office, toward wherever talent is cheaper and regulatory overhead lighter. Zug keeps the headquarters, the licenses and the client relationships. The rest moves on.