Crypto lending platform Celsius has joined a number of cryptocurrency companies to lay off employees as falling prices and the ongoing bear market shows no end.
Celcius has laid off 150 employees, the Israeli news agency Calcalist reported on Sunday. This includes employees in Israel.
The last update of the employee figures of Celsius from April 2022 showed a staff of 200 employees in New Jersey, London, Tel Aviv, Cyprus and Serbia. In total, the company seems to have 650 employees.
Based on the number of LinkedIn, the reported layoffs would correspond to a staff reduction of 23%.
Celcius was founded in 2017. The company works in a similar way to a bank, albeit with more risk and higher returns. The company collects crypto deposits from customers and lends them to private and institutional borrowers. Customers will then receive payments from the revenue that Celsius generates from its loans.
The network promises high returns on deposits of up to 18.6% annually. Celsius claimed to have around $12 billion in assets under management and $8 billion in processed loans in May.
Celsius sparked fears of a liquidity crisis when the company suspended withdrawals and transfers on its platform on June 12. Even after three weeks, these were not resumed, leaving users frustrated.
The firm has reportedly resisted the advice of its own lawyers to file for bankruptcy. Celsius prefers to rely on the support of users to avoid the time-consuming process.
Goldman Sachs also wanted to raise about $ 2 billion to acquire the troubled company.
On June 30, the last update of Celsius came. In a blog post, it was said that the company was working on stabilizing liquidity and operations.
“We continue to take important steps to preserve and protect assets and consider options available to us”
“These options include, among other things, tracking strategic transactions and restructuring our liabilities.”
Since the bad news about Celsius, the native token CEL has dropped by 80% so far this year.
