Gnosis Ltd reduced the team behind its consumer wallet, Gnosis App. Co-founder Friederike Ernst wrote in the GnosisDAO governance forum on July 17, 2026, that the product would leave the company by the third quarter of 20261. “The consequence was a difficult one: we significantly reduced the team, and a focused group will bring a proposal to the DAO to fund Gnosis App independently,” Ernst said. “Whatever the outcome, Gnosis App will cease to be part of Gnosis Ltd in Q3”. Gnosis posted on X inviting companies to reach out about former employees. Austrian outlet Trending Topics reported on July 30, 2026, that the headcount reduction followed a review of the app2.
The second round of layoffs at Gnosis on the record since 2026
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| May 9, 2026 | Layoffs. Layoffs at Gnosis Ltd became public |
| July 17, 2026 | Layoffs. Layoffs at Gnosis became public |
18 rounds of layoffs on the record in 2026, the most of any year
Rounds of layoffs CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2026: 18
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 11 |
| 2023 | 12 |
| 2024 | 6 |
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2026 | 18 |
The move
Ernst framed the decision as a response to growth she called linear, something short of a product failure. “On Gnosis App: growth has been linear, and linear is not good enough for a consumer product,” she wrote in the same report. “With dozens of wallets failing and the mainstream use case yet to materialize, a wallet team needs to be nimble and fully focused on its users, and operating inside an organization of Gnosis's breadth made that harder”1. She dated the decision to the first week of July 2026, days before the quarterly report posted. The second quarter had already closed by then. Trending Topics cited an X post from Gnosis about the cut. Both that post and the quarterly report left out a headcount figure2.
The report paired that cut with a growth number on the same product. Swap volume on Gnosis App grew 124.9 percent quarter over quarter to $702,700 in the second quarter of 2026, with peak daily swappers reaching 294, a 65.2 percent increase over the first quarter1. The report credited part of that growth to a Give & Earn referral program launched in May 2026, which paid 10 euros in CRC to both a referrer and a new cardholder on the first qualifying spend.
Before and after
Gnosis App ran as a budget line inside Gnosis Ltd through the second quarter of 2026, built around the Circles protocol, which lets users mint and spend a community currency called CRC1. The quarterly report pointed to one bright spot inside the product. Active Circles minters more than doubled in the quarter, and 69 builders shipped 74 mini-apps during a six-week hackathon called the Circles Garage, which ran from mid-May to a closing ceremony on June 29, 2026. Ernst wrote that “a focused group will bring a proposal to the DAO to fund Gnosis App independently,” which would move the product from a Gnosis Ltd budget item to a portfolio company reporting to the DAO on its own.
What to watch
The quarterly report had promised that "full details will follow in the coming funding GIPs"1. GnosisDAO passed GIP 152 on Snapshot on August 12, 2026, with 96.86 percent of the votes cast in favor, approving a spin-out of Gnosis App into an independent company led by Deep Shah, a member of the team that built it3. The terms give the DAO a $2.5 million SAFE position, $1.5 million of it in cash, at a $10 million post-money valuation cap, for at least 25 percent ownership. Shah's own goal is the next marker: 100,000 weekly active users within 12 months.
Sources
- Friederike Ernst, "Gnosis Ltd Quarterly Report — Q2 2026," Gnosis (GnosisDAO Governance Forum), July 17, 2026, https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gnosis-ltd-quarterly-report-q2-2026/12391
- Jakob Steinschaden, "More Than 7,000 Jobs Gone: Layoffs in the Crypto Industry Are Picking up," Trending Topics, July 30, 2026, https://www.trendingtopics.eu/more-than-7000-jobs-gone-layoffs-in-the-crypto-industry-are-picking-up/
- deep45shah.eth, "GIP 152 - Should GnosisDAO spin out the Gnosis App into an independent company?," Snapshot (GnosisDAO), August 12, 2026, https://snapshot.box/#/s:gnosis.eth/proposal/0xd3300b62e9aabd41e04fd4d302898a1364f1a40eee62235dc9ef1fd6bb9afd20