Crypto lender Celsius pauses withdrawals, transfers citing ‘extreme market conditions’

The price of Celsius Network's token plummeted in the past hour after the firm said it was pausing withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts.

Celsius wrote that it was taking this action to put it in a better position to honor its withdrawal obligations.

We want to act in the interest of our community. We have activated a clause in our terms of use that will allow for this process to take place. Celsius has valuable assets and we are trying to meet our obligations.

Users can deposit their money into Celsius and get weekly interest payments. The platform offers as much as 18% interest a year. 1.7 million people call Celsius their home, according to the company's website.

Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of liquidation took place on one of the brutal weekend in the market. Some of their lowest levels in over a year were seen at the time of publication. Other high-profile projects were down as well.

There must be many users who are in a position of leverage and desperately need those funds from Celsius, now locked away. I’m sad we’ve gotten here. Protect yourselves.

— Ledger Prometheus of the Plebs (@ledgerstatus) June 13, 2022

The collapse of Terraform Labs' Luna and its sister token UST last month has led to increased scrutiny of the cripto lender. Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of Celsius Network, has been trying to assure customers that they can withdraw their assets at any time. On its website, Celsius says it has about $3.8 billion of assets, which is less than the $24 billion it said it had.