<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
Celsius last year raised $ 400mn in an equity funding round led by Caisse de d\u00e9p\u00f4t et placement du Qu\u00e9bec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund, and WestCap, the fund set up by former Airbnb and Blackstone executive Laurence Tosi. <\/p>\n
In a statement, CDPQ said it was \u201cclosely monitoring the situation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn an environment of generalized market declines (stock markets and bonds – for the first time in 50 years), investors are reducing their risk in all asset classes,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this context, Celsius has been impacted by very difficult markets in recent weeks, more specifically, the strong volume of withdrawals by customers. Celsius is taking proactive action to uphold its obligations to its customers (Celsius community) and has honored its obligation to its customers to date. “<\/p>\n
WestCap did not immediately respond to a request for comment on their investment. <\/p>\n
That fundraising came even as US regulators indicated they were scrutinising the industry. State authorities in Texas and New Jersey have alleged that Celsius’s yield-bearing accounts amount to an unregistered securities offering.<\/p>\n
Celsius’s halt to withdrawals early on Monday was also a U-turn after it had spent several days rebutting accusations that customers could not make withdrawals. Chief executive Alex Mashinsky challenged critics at the weekend to find “even one person who has a problem withdrawing”.<\/p>\n
Celsius, which has offices in the US, UK and Lithuania, said the redemption freeze was done for the \u201cbenefit of our entire community in order to stabilize liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect assets\u201d. <\/p>\n
The group’s own coin, known by the ticker CEL, has lost half its value in the past 24 hours, according to CryptoCompare data. <\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Josephine Cumbo<\/em><\/p>\n\n
Video: Highlights from the FT crypto and digital assets summit | FT Live <\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Binance on Monday halted withdrawals of bitcoin for several hours after crypto lender Celsius also blocked customers from pulling funds from its platform, citing \u201cextreme market conditions\u201d, while digital assets slumped in price. Bitcoin, ether and other major tokens have wobbled in recent weeks while inflation has surged and major central banks have signalled they …<\/p>\n
Bitcoin tumbles after crypto lender Celsius blocks all redemptions<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/4c344baf-98d7-4297-8e72-ca1f07d33f3a.jpg?source=next-opengraph&fit=scale-down&width=900","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}