Crypto lender Celsius has announced putting on hold withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts. In the blog published, the platform cited extreme market conditions as the reason behind the move.
“We are taking this necessary action for the benefit of our entire community in order to stabilize liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect assets. Furthermore, customers will continue to accrue rewards during the pause in line with our commitment to our customers.”
Stressing that, its ultimate objective is stabilizing liquidity and restoring withdrawals, Swaps, and transfers between accounts as quickly as possible.
“There is a lot of work ahead as we consider various options, this process will take time, and there may be delays”, it wrote.
The latest development has further fuelled FUD which is currently engulfing the space. Zooming out, the crypto market saw some of the roughest weekends with the world’s biggest cryptocurrency sinking below $26,000 amid a broader selloff fanned by concerns about rising U.S. interest rates.
Following the collapse of Terraform Labs’ Luna and its sister token UST last month, several Defi lending platforms like Celsius are facing increasing scrutiny.
This inadvertently spurred massive high sell-offs which Celsius so far have failed to prevent despite assurances and promotional activities.
Celsius Transferred $247M Worth Of Crypto To FTX
Not only that, another unannounced development has further enraged community members. The staking platform has reportedly shifted $247 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin [wBTC] from Aave and sent it to the FTX exchange for reasons not specified.
Twitter users have been flagging these moves, questioning the supposed transparency that the platform advocates.
One user took a leaf out of the terms and conditions highlighting the specific clause where the lending platform mentioned it is not liable to pay back depositors’ money in the advent of a liquidity crisis.
Another exclaimed, “This isn’t just a bear market this is a purge: thousands of projects will die and their tokens go to zero. TerraLuna was the first, Celsius Network is next and Tron [Usdd] is on its way.”
On the price front, Celsius‘s token CEL has been on a freefalling spree and has tanked by more than 68% in just 12 hours. At the time of writing, the yield asset’s value stands at $0.19, down by 52% in the past 24 hours.