Celsius, an American-Israeli crypto lender, laid off 150 employees over the weekend as it battles a financial crisis that forced it to halt customer withdrawals last month, according to Calcalist.
The firm has approximately 650 employees, including executives, listed on LinkedIn, implying that 23 percent of the company was affected.
The layoffs come at a time when the company is facing possible insolvency. It halted withdrawals in June, citing “extreme market conditions,” and has since hired restructuring experts. Following its mid-June turmoil, the company said it is looking into ways to “preserve and protect assets.”
Goldman Sachs (GS) is said to be leading a $2 billion investor fundraising effort to buy Celsius’s distressed assets. However, crypto exchange FTX is said to have passed on a deal to buy the lender after investigating its finances.
Celsius is the latest in a long line of cryptocurrency companies to lay off employees in the face of a bear market. Coinbase (COIN) laid off over 1,100 employees in June, and other exchanges such as Bybit, Huobi, and Banxa have also laid off employees in the last month.
According to CoinGecko data, the price of Celsius’s CEL tokens has increased by 15% in the last 24 hours.
