Celsius Halts Deposits and Withdrawals
Celsius, a centralized DeFi platform, has halted deposits and withdrawals of cryptocurrency, citing extreme market conditions. The company said it activated a clause in its Terms of Use that allows them to freeze customers’ assets.
Celsius clients are unable to withdraw, swap, and transfer their cryptocurrency. Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of Celsius, took to Twitter and defended the company by saying that people should stop spreading FUD and misinformation.
The price of Celsius’ native token CEL dropped by over 80% after the platform disabled withdrawals. Weeks prior, Mashinsky denied that the company was affected by the Terra Luna crash. “As stated before, @CelsiusNetwork did not have any meaningful exposure to the depeg,” he said in a tweet. Celsius is yet to announce when withdrawals will resume.
Binance Ends Support For Litecoin (MWEB)
Binance, the largest exchange in the world, announced that it will no longer be supporting Litecoin transactions that utilize the MimbleWimble (MWEB) function. The exchange stated that all deposits made through the MWEB function will not be received and will result in the direct loss of funds. The price of Litecoin fell more than 16% after the announcement. It is currently trading at $44 at the time of writing.
Litecoin was deslisted by big South Korean exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb. The exchanges cited that Litecoin’s activation of the MimbleWimble protocol was at odds with South Korean Specific Financial Information Act. The act requires exchanges to check transactions for illicit transactions.
MimbleWimble is a decentralized system that focuses on anonymity. The protocol conceals sender and receiver addresses. It also batches up transactions to increase privacy. Litecoin activated the MimbleWimble protocol in May to increase privacy and scalability.
BlockFi Lays Off 20% of Staff
BlockFi, a DeFi lending platform, announced that it is letting go of 20% of its employees due to the dramatic shifts in macroeconomic conditions. “This morning we announced that after taking significant time to plan and consider, we are reducing our headcount by roughly 20%. This is not a decision we take lightly and brings us great sadness,” said CEO Zac Prince.
Prince continued to say that clients will not experience any material changes to the quality of service from the platform. Many crypto companies have been laying off staff to prepare for the crypto winter. Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it would be laying off 10% of its staff earlier this month. Crypto.com, another well-known cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it was letting go of 260 staff members.
Written by Lindi Miti © Crypto University 2022