Bitcoin, ether and other major coupons have fallen in recent weeks, while inflation has skyrocketed and major central banks have signaled a sharp drop in incentives. However, they fell sharply again on Monday amid growing indications that the infrastructure supporting the digital assets market is creaking under pressure. Binance blamed a “stuck transaction” for its suspension. Bitcoin, the world’s most-traded cryptocurrency, has fallen nearly 20 percent since Friday, below $ 24,000, its lowest level since December 2020, according to CryptoCompare. Meanwhile, the value of the wider encryption market fell from a high of $ 3.2 trillion in November to about $ 1 trillion on Monday. Celsius is one of the largest players in the digital performance market, enabling users to borrow their badges as collateral for other encryption projects. In exchange for lending their chips, traders were able to earn annual returns of up to 17%. Emotion towards these high-risk projects plummeted after the collapse of tokens terra and luna – which were the foundation of another popular performance platform – last month in just a few days. The value of the assets deposited on the Celsius platform shrank to less than $ 12 billion on May 17 from more than $ 24 billion at the end of December. Ether, which is seen as a substitute for sentiment for high-yield digital asset projects, has fallen nearly 30 percent since Friday, dropping below two-thirds in dollar terms this year and trading at $ 1,195. Sales on Monday also rose in shares of companies focusing on encryption. MicroStrategy, a technology company that invests heavily in bitcoin, lost a quarter of its value in its first Wall Street trades, while Nasdaq-listed Coinbase cryptocurrency fell 16%.

Celsius raised $ 400 million last year in a equity round of financing led by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canada’s second largest pension fund, and WestCap, the fund founded by the former Airbn executive and Laurence Tosi. CDPQ and WestCap did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This fundraising took place even when US regulators said they were looking into the industry. State authorities in Texas and New Jersey have argued that Celsius’s performance accounts are tantamount to an unregistered offering of securities. The cessation of withdrawals by Celsius early Monday was also a reversal, as it had been several days since the allegations that customers could not withdraw. CEO Alex Mashinsky challenged critics over the weekend to find “even one person who has trouble retiring.” Celsius, which has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Lithuania, said the acquisition was frozen “for the benefit of our entire community in order to stabilize liquidity and operations, while taking steps to preserve and protect assets.” data “. The group’s currency, known as the CEL, has lost half its value in the last 24 hours, according to CryptoCompare. Video: Screenshots from the FT Encryption and Digital Assets Summit | FT Live Additional reference by Josephine Cumbo.