Celsius Network, one of the major crypto lending platforms, abruptly put a “halt” on withdrawals and transfers on Sunday night, claiming “extreme market conditions.” As markets opened in Asia on Monday morning, Celsius announced its halving, and the price of its CEL coin, which had been valued at roughly $7 a year earlier, had plummeted to only 21 cents.
Other cryptocurrencies’ prices dropped in the hours following the halving. As of 8:53 a.m. ET, CoinMarketCap’s worldwide cryptocurrency tracker revealed a total market cap of crypto assets (including stable coins and tokens) of less than $1 trillion, down from a high of $3 trillion in November.
According to Coinbase, the price of bitcoin has dropped by about $2,000 in the last 24 hours, falling to $23,510.15 as of 9:33 a.m. ET. Bitcoin’s price was last this low in December 2020, when it peaked at $69,000 on November 9, 2021. Today’s drop is the latest in a long line of declines for coin desk. The note has now lasted 12 weeks in a row, up from $49,000 in March.
The same can be said for Ethereum, which has dropped over 14% in the previous day, from $1,355 before the Celsius announcement to around $1,238 by 9:33 a.m. ET. It also reached a high of $4,891 on November 9 of last year.
Binance, a prominent trading platform, has also halted bitcoin withdrawals in the face of plummeting crypto prices. At 8 a.m. ET, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the freeze, citing “a backlog created by a stalled transaction.” In essence, he stated that the stagnation will be rectified in about 30 minutes, but subsequently added, “It’s definitely going to take a little longer to recover than I first thought.”
According to CNBC, the price of shares in cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase plunged 20% before the market started on Monday morning after the company declared a hiring freeze and revoked accepted employment offers. Its stock has dropped 76% in value since last year.
Another area to keep an eye on is bitcoin mining. Cointelegraph; according to the paper, older mining rigs are at risk of closing due to current prices and mining difficulty, based on data from Bitdeer and others. That is the point at which they are no longer profitable to operate since the earnings are offset by the cost of electricity used to run the rig. According to the article, next-generation hardware may continue to make money even if prices fall, but a unit like Antminer’s S17+ (73T) rig may become unprofitable if the price falls below $22,000.
For the first time since the Celsius freeze, when the price of bitcoin went below $25K, he appears on The Verge.