On Sunday night, one of the major crypto lending platforms, Celsius Network, abruptly imposed a “halt” on withdrawals and transfers, claiming “extreme market conditions.” Celsius announced its suspension as Asian markets opened on Monday morning, and the price of its CEL token, which was worth about $7 a year ago, dropped by a third to barely 21 cents.
Other cryptocurrencies’ prices have fallen in the hours since the stoppage. The overall market cap of crypto assets (including stablecoins and tokens) was below $1 trillion as of 8:53 AM ET, down from $3 trillion in November, according to CoinMarketCap’s worldwide cryptocurrency tracker.
Bitcoin’s price has dropped about 12% in the last 24 hours, losing nearly $2,000 since the Celsius news broke, to $23,510.15 as of 9:33 AM ET, according to Coinbase. The price of Bitcoin reached that low in December 2020, and it peaked at $69,000 on November 9th, 2021. Today’s decrease extends a 12-week decline that began at $49,000 in March, according to CoinDesk.
The same is true for Ethereum, which has fallen almost 14% in the previous day, falling from $1,355 prior to the Celsius news to around $1,238 as of 9:33 AM ET. It likewise peaked on November 9th of last year, reaching $4,891.
Binance, a major trading platform, has also suspended Bitcoin withdrawals in the face of these plummeting crypto prices. At 8 a.m. ET, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the freeze, citing “a blocked transaction producing a backlog.” He initially stated that the pause will be fixed in about 30 minutes, but subsequently stated, “Likely this is going to take a bit longer to correct than my initial estimate.”
According to CNBC, the price of shares of the crypto trading platform Coinbase, which had already declared a recruiting freeze and canceled accepted employment offers, plunged by 20% before markets started on Monday morning. Its share price has dropped by 76% in the last year.
Another area to keep an eye on is Bitcoin mining, where CoinTelegraph claims that with current prices and mining difficulty, older mining rigs are at risk of being shut down based on data from Bitdeer and others. At that point, they would no longer be profitable to run, with earnings being offset by the cost of the electricity used to power the rigs. According to the article, newer generation hardware can continue to make money even if prices continue to decline, while a unit like Antminer’s S17+ (73T) machine might become unprofitable if the price goes below $22,000.
