Weekly Crypto Roundup: seeks attention, cut jobs and sideways momentum

Seeking attention

Crypto followers have struggled for years to take their new technology mainstream. Now the crypto sector is the center of attention, for all the wrong reasons.

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This week, the controversial crypto loan company Celsius Network, which froze all user transfers and withdrawals, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States. A legal document showed that the company had a deficit of close to 1.2 billion dollars.

The company also plans to spend its $ 167 million in cash to support some operations while undergoing financial restructuring.

Celsius said it had about 1.7 million registered users and $ 6 billion in assets at the beginning of this month.

“The beginning of the” crypto winter “combined with the well-publicized collapse of Luna and the failure of several crypto funds / exchanges led to growing reluctance to do business with companies, such as Celsius, which had crypto assets, said a legal document signed by Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky Thursday.

Several US government regulators are currently investigating Celsius’ activities, and one regulator had said it believed the platform was “deeply insolvent”.

Other cryptocurrencies are also in the firing line. This week, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an organization that advises countries on international financial matters, promised to push for the regulation of stablecoins – cryptocurrencies linked to the value of dollars, pounds and other assets. A report on possible approaches is currently planned for October.

The US Treasury Department is also working on a report for President Joe Biden on the risks and opportunities that digital assets can bring through mass adoption.

All in all, the current crypto-meltdown is not the time many advocates would have opted for international groups and official bodies to start paying more attention to the sector.

Cut jobs

The NFT community experienced a shock on Thursday when OpenSea, which claims to be the “first and largest” NFT marketplace, announced that it had cut 20% of its team.

OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer accused a “unique combination of crypto-winter and broad macroeconomic instability.” However, he stressed that the company had a “very strong” balance sheet.

The move highlights how more and more crypto companies that expanded aggressively last year, fail to maintain the same momentum during the bear market in 2022 that saw customers pull their investments en masse. This triggered liquidity crises in the industry.

The question now is whether less rival NFT marketplaces will follow in OpenSea’s footsteps and reduce staff – or use this time to recruit from a growing pool of cryptocurrencies desperate for new jobs.

Lateral momentum

With Bitcoin just under $ 21,000 while Ether was above $ 1200 on Friday, not much has changed in terms of price performance in recent weeks.

Data from the cryptanalysis platform Glassnode showed that the amount of Bitcoin held by long-term investors and / or lost by traders has reached a new 19-month high of 7,376,212,666 BTC. This may indicate that traders are waiting out for the bear market, or that many have somehow lost access to their assets.