Crypto News: Celsius asset freeze, Coinbase layoffs & $20k Bitcoin price

Crypto news headlines today are dominated by three stories: Celsius freezing assets, Coinbase laying off workers, and the worrying price of Bitcoin.

In mid-June, the crypto market is facing a new crash as prices continue to fall and companies are struggling to stay afloat. The collapse of Terra Luna created the first crypto crash in mid-May. This time around it's a combination of sky-high inflation levels and damaged faith in crypto following last month's collapse.

Crypto news in the coming days will likely centre around interest rate hikes after the US Federal Reserve meeting ends on June 15.

Celsius freeze assets amid 'extreme market conditions'

First, the 19% APY savings account Anchor Protocol collapsed along with the Terra Luna crash in May.

Now, just a month later, the 18.63% APY savings account offered by Celsius is under threat. The popular crypto lending and staking platform froze all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts on Monday. In a message to investors, the platform blamed 'extreme market conditions' for the freeze.

Celsius is believed to manage more than $11.5 billion in assets. This is under the combined $40 billion invested in Terra Luna (now Luna Classic) and UST (now USTC) before the network collapse – but still a significant amount to hold at risk.

Celsius offers low-interest loans and high yields to its users and was launched in 2017. Celsius is available in more than 100 countries worldwide with offices in New Jersey, London, Tel Aviv, Cyprus, and Serbia.

Coinbase lays off 18% of workforce

Coinbase announced it will lay off 18% of its workforce in an email to employees on Tuesday.

Coinbase has roughly 5,000 full-time workers, meaning around 1,100 people are likely to lose their jobs at the US' largest crypto exchange by trading volume. The email to employees said markets 'appear to be entering a recession' which could lead to another 'crypto winter'.

Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong said in the email the company needed to 'plan for the worst' to ensure the operation of the business in any environment.

It comes after Coinbase planned to add 2,000 jobs at the beginning of the year. A freeze on hiring coupled with crashing crypto prices has seen Coinbase's shares fall 79% this year and 85% from the all-time high.

Bitcoin price barely holds $20,000

The Bitcoin price fell to a new macro low of $20,180 in the morning of June 15.

This is the lowest Bitcoin price since December 2020 and a 71% drop in price since the Bitcoin all-time high back in November last year. Bitcoin quickly recovered to over $21,000 after threatening to fall below $20,000 – but volatile market conditions could see further losses in the days to come.

Earlier this year the market cap of Bitcoin was over $1 trillion – now this is down to $400 billion.

EverGrow Coin sees over 60% trading volume spike

The trading volume of stablecoin BUSD has increased significantly in the past few days.

On June 13 – while other cryptocurrencies crashed – BUSD saw a spike of over 100$ in trading volume from $5.7 billion to $11.5 billion within a day. BUSD has also firmly joined the crypto top 10 following the collapse of Terra Luna and the plummeting market caps of other top cryptocurrencies.

BUSD is currently in 6th place in the crypto market cap rankings after flipping Cardano and XRP.

The strength of BUSD during the crypto crashes is partly behind the spiking price in EverGrow Coin today. EverGrow Coin has grown 12% in price to $0.0000001764 over the past 24 hours.

EverGrow Coin is the leading reflection paying out BUSD daily. More than $37 million BUSD has been rewarded to investors since the EverGrow Coin launch in September last year. EverGrow Coin charges a 14% transaction tax with 8% redistributed instantly as BUSD.

The transaction tax on EverGrow Coin is applied both to buy and sell orders, meaning that investors continue earning BUSD as crypto passive income during sell-offs and breakouts.