Source: Celsius has laid off 150 employees, around a quarter of its staff, after pausing withdrawals on June 13; the lender says it is exploring restructuring

The American-Israeli company is parting ways with around 150 employees as it continues to look for a way out of a crisis that saw …

CTech 2022-07-04 Meir Orbach

Context & Ripple Effects

Celsius had already suspended customer withdrawals, triggering a sharp CEL token sell-off, while reports described the lender as seeking financing and other restructuring alternatives. The workforce reduction turns that financial stress into an operating cutback.

Related coverage also contrasts Celsius’s financial-freedom positioning with risky trades that had reduced its reported assets, making the layoff a concrete sign that the crisis has moved beyond market-price pressure.

First-order effects

About 150 Celsius employees lose their jobs, reducing the lender’s workforce by roughly a quarter as management pursues a restructuring.
Celsius operates with a smaller cost base while customer withdrawals remain paused and its liabilities are under review.

Second-order effects

Potential financiers and restructuring counterparties must assess Celsius as a reduced organization whose customer-access restrictions and operating cuts are now linked to the same liquidity crisis.
Customers face a lender directing resources toward restructuring rather than normal operations, reinforcing the practical impact of the withdrawal pause.

Third-order effects

If this sequence recurs across crypto lenders, rapid balance-sheet stress will increasingly translate into payroll cuts and formal restructurings rather than being contained as token-market volatility.
The episode puts greater weight on whether lenders’ risk-taking and liquidity practices can withstand market downturns before customer access is restricted.

The trend: Crypto-lending stress is moving from token-price shocks and withdrawal freezes into operational retrenchment and liability restructuring.

Discussion

@wublockchain Wu Blockchain on x
Lending platform Celsius has laid off about 150 employees, including those in Israel, according to Israeli media Calcalistech. The layoffs represent about a quarter of Celsius' total workforce. Many of Celsius' businesses are run by third-party platforms. https://www.calcalistech…
@mr_skilling Mr. Skilling on x
When the self-proclaimed Crypto King can't withdraw his funds, what does he do? Sells his watches to buy more crypto. 🤌🤌🤌 https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@ahcastor Amy Castor on x
Celsius continues to reassure customers that everything is totally fine. “Our relationship with the community and our clients has been a source of pride for all team members at Celsius...” https://blog.celsius.network/ ...
@frances_coppola Cassandra Schadenfreude on x
“pursuing strategic transactions as well as a restructuring of our liabilities” Translation: it can't pay its debts and is desperately seeking a buyer. https://twitter.com/...
@jennatelesca Jenna Telesca on x
“Everyone's been left in the dark here, nobody knows exactly what's going on with them,” said one Celsius customer. “Are they insolvent or simply illiquid?” By @Vlajournaliste https://www.wsj.com/...
@silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x
It sure sounds like Celsius retail customers will be lucky to get any of their tokens back. https://blog.celsius.network/ ...
@bergealex4 Alex B. on x
Why DeFi “succeeded”: It's over collateralized. The idea that it's a shoe in replacement for a financial system is laughable. The market for over collateralized lending has a glass ceiling. Degenerate or not, this capital inefficiency simply cannot scale to all use cases. https:/…
@cryptohayes Arthur Hayes on x
“Number Three” is a sad but predictable story of #cryptocurrency centralised trading and lending businesses blowing up due to too much leverage. Long Live #DeFi. SOFYL https://cryptohayes.medium.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@mayazi Maya Zehavi on x
Read!! How 2AC blew a whale shark-sized hole in crypto markets with reputation based leverage across centralized lending platforms https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/ ...
@crypt0e Shaquille O'Atmeal on x
Congratulations everyone, our very own Lehman Bros moment! We're growing up so fast! https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@djohnson_cpa @djohnson_cpa on x
Can Satoshi's wallets sell some coins to really kick things up a notch? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@permissionlesol @permissionlesol on x
4/ Arthur Hayes Some conclusions of 3AC implosion, how they started, how this happened. Also, conclusion that centralized lenders failed en masse, while their decentralized counterparts liquidated collateral and operated with no hiccups. https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/ ...
@thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x
Big win for DeFi this cycle. While CeFi lenders are seeing their equity getting totally wiped out, the big DeFi protocols are only down around 90% https://twitter.com/...
@ernestocontrer Ernesto Contreras on x
“When you remove trust from the equation and rely purely on transparent lending standards executed by impartial computer code, you get a better outcome. This is the lesson to be learned” -@CryptoHayes's essay on 3AC & ecosystem is my best read this week! https://entrepreneurshand…
@ummjackson Jackson Palmer on x
So these guys have just gone MIA while their guy in the Virgin Islands handles the bankruptcy? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@coindesk @coindesk on x
EXCLUSIVE: A tangle of offshore entities connected to the embattled crypto hedge fund Three Arrows includes a trading unit, TPS Capital, that's said to remain quite active - @thesamreynolds reports https://www.coindesk.com/...
@mdudas @mdudas on x
“Both centralised and decentralised lending companies / platforms had exposure to 3AC — and only the players in one of these two markets went belly up. The centralised lenders failed en masse, while their decentralised counterparts...” ~ @CryptoHayes https://entrepreneurshandbook…
@stacyannj Stacy Elliott on x
Latest from @CryptoHayes is excellent: “Very few money managers stopped to engage the critical thinking part of their brain and ponder how the fuggity fuck Anchor generated these yields.” https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/ ...
@lukeyoungblood @lukeyoungblood on x
Another excellent blog by @CryptoHayes - despite the market carnage, it has been encouraging to see how well DeFi protocols fared. I hope that regulators and the public see how DeFi can lead to better outcomes for lenders, borrowers, and investors. https://entrepreneurshandbook.c…
@matthuang Matt Huang on x
Clear (and humorous) recap from @CryptoHayes on: - 3AC and its collapse - The subsequent fallout on CeFi companies - “The [DeFi] protocols... did not have to halt any withdrawals... continued to issue loans... did not suffer any downtime.” https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/ ...
@bwertz Boris Wertz on x
“Both centralised & decentralised lending companies/ platforms had exposure to 3AC - & only the players in one of these two markets went belly up.” Great analysis of the Three Arrows Capital (3AC) blowup and how decentralized platforms faired much better. https://cryptohayes.medi…
@scottmelker @scottmelker on x
Three Arrows Capital fucked up so bad that they skipped 14 levels of bankruptcy and went straight to chapter 15. https://www.theblock.co/...
@garrytan Garry Tan on x
The crypto carnage was driven by centralized lenders with weak risk controls and minimal collateral requirements Defi lending protocols operated as designed, and just notched another proof point through a catastrophic risk contagion 👇 https://twitter.com/...
@pt Parker on x
This was a good read on how crypto broke, but I'm still left wondering why people are so excited about lending that requires 150%+ collateral. Is the TAM huge for this? Does crypto expand the market or materially lower costs? DeFi survived, so what? https://entrepreneurshandbook.…
@wublockchain Wu Blockchain on x
An excellent article by BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes reviewing the character and behavior patterns of the founders of 3AC: The only way to juice the performance of your hedge fund is to become a directional trader, and/or use borrowed funds. 3AC did both . https://cryptohayes.medi…
@frances_coppola Cassandra Schadenfreude on x
My piece on #Voyager's trading suspension and probable insolvency. Sorry, Voyagers, you are going down with this ship and no lifeboat will save you. (Pic does not link) #VoyagerDigital https://www.coppolacomment.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@daviddorr David Dorr on x
3AC didn't just blow up from degen gambling. They were duping investors and clients. Investigators are going to find a trail of crime. Seems like some of it may still be ongoing. https://twitter.com/...
@bitfinexed @bitfinexed on x
Voyagers wave their money Bon Voyage. Their money went on a Voyage from their pocket to the pockets of crypto scammers and Ponzi scammers. https://twitter.com/...
@frances_coppola Cassandra Schadenfreude on x
If Voyager's app is still accepting deposits, then the announcement on July 1st was wrong. It said they were suspending deposits. Of course, this might just be a non-functioning screen on the app. https://www.investvoyager.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@frances_coppola Cassandra Schadenfreude on x
@Satoshi68648885 ... If I may.... Voyager's cash flow was a dumpster fire before the 3AC loss. I think it is not so much that it has lost 100% of funds, as it has spent them and is now unable to borrow what it needs to meet its obligations. https://www.coppolacomment.com/ ...
@zjemptv Zinnia Jones on x
But they can still go to the FDIC right? Right? https://twitter.com/...
@kadhim @kadhim on x
Voyager has halted withdrawals, joining Celsius in freezing customer deposits. Also reveals that almost 60% of the its outstanding crypto loans are to Three Arrows Capital, which is in liquidation https://www.prnewswire.com/...
@fed_speak @fed_speak on x
HALF of Voyager's whole loan book was to a crypto hedge fund run by a couple kids levered to the gills. Unreal. https://www.prnewswire.com/...
@alangaustin Alan Austin on x
This is crazy. Lenders like Voyager concentrating this much of their loan portfolio with just 1-2 parties. What could possibly go wrong 🙄 https://www.prnewswire.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@zachweinberg @zachweinberg on x
It's only web3 if it comes from the Defi region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling finance. https://twitter.com/...
@mdudas @mdudas on x
Voyager is a centralized crypto FinTech that has nothing to do with Web3 https://twitter.com/...
@investvoyager @investvoyager on x
An update to customers: https://www.investvoyager.com/ ...
@moonlamboio Moon Lambo on x
Voyager has suspended all trading, deposits, and withdrawals indefinitely. In a nutshell: They ran out of money. 💸 They acknowledge a part of the problem is the insolvency of Three Arrows Capital. This is a domino effect spreading throughout crypto. https://www.investvoyager.com/…
@alexhern @alexhern on x
idk feel like it's starting to become clear that banking regulations are quite good and a regulation-free clone of finance... isn't https://www.investvoyager.com/ ...
@bitboy_crypto Ben Armstrong on x
I hope you are learning. SELF-CUSTODY is the only solution for non-traders. Crappy job @investvoyager #crypto #bitcoin https://finance.yahoo.com/...
@modern_rock @modern_rock on x
Another day another insolvent crypto... people can't be still this blind can they? https://twitter.com/...
@preetbanerjee Preet Banerjee on x
Democratizing finance dies in sunlight? https://twitter.com/...

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