The young businessman tries to solve problems...getty
We’ve seen a big bounce (and 12%+ dividends!) in one particular type of closed-end fund (CEF) this year—and all of my buy indicators suggest this profitable play is still in its early stages.
Specifically, I’m talking about tech-focused CEFs—which we’re getting a nice second chance to buy thanks to last week’s earnings whiffs from the likes of Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL).
Buying a tech CEF is like buying an ETF that focuses on technology, but with two key differences:
Big dividends: the CEF we’re going to analyze today yields 12.1%—and it pays dividends monthly, too. You and I know that both of these things are unheard of in the world of “regular” stocks and funds.
Big discounts: This fund sports a 12.2% discount to net asset value (NAV)—CEF-speak for saying that we’ll pay just 88 cents for every dollar of its assets!
The fund is called the BlackRock Science & Technology Trust II (BSTZ). We’ll get to the “II” part in a moment. But first, it’s worth stopping to consider this fund has shot up over 20%, just one month into 2023.
Then there’s the dividend payout, which amounts to more than $100 per month for every $10,000 invested.
We’ve got more upside potential with BSTZ, too. Because unlike an ETF, this fund has two ways to deliver price gains: through the appreciation of its portfolio—which is still undervalued, due to last year’s selloff—and its 12% discount to NAV. As that discount narrows (and flips to a premium; likely, in my view), it’ll pull the price higher.
It’s always a good idea to question a yield this high, so let’s go ahead and pull apart the elements that support it.
BSTZ is a relatively new fund, having been launched in June 2019, so we don’t have a lot to go on with regard to its history, but it has raised dividends three times since inception (once in 2020 and twice in 2021, plus a nice special dividend that same year). That’s a great start. And there are other signs that we can trust BSTZ’s dividend.
While the fund lacks a long track record, its older sibling, the BlackRock Science and Technology Trust (BST), has been increasing payouts for nearly a decade while also offering the odd special dividend.
That is our first clue that BSTZ’s payout is sustainable: both funds are managed by the same group, and BST’s history of responsible payout increases should indicate that BSTZ’s future payouts will likely go up, not down. And our second clue is even more compelling.
Since BST’s portfolio has nearly tripled in less than a decade—even after the big tech selloff of 2022—the fund has built up enough profits to sustain payouts for many years to come.
This isn’t surprising given its portfolio. Despite tech’s struggles last year, Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Mastercard (MA), and Visa (V) have been tremendous long-term outperformers. They’re also BST’s top positions, and these, in addition to the fund’s investments across the tech world, caused the line in the chart above to go up and to the right for years.
While it doesn’t necessarily follow that BSTZ can do the same, this is one more encouraging sign.
A Quick Guide to Sustainable CEF Dividends
There’s another strategy you can use to see if a CEF’s payouts are likely to stay where they are or go up, or if there’s a risk of a dividend cut.
The key is to look back at the fund’s long-term total NAV return (or the return of its underlying portfolio, including dividends) and compare it to the fund’s payout. This calculation is a good first step in determining whether a CEF can maintain its current payout level.
Since inception, and after the worst decline in tech stocks since the Great Recession, BSTZ’s 8.7% average annual total NAV return suggests a sustainable 8.7% yield on NAV.
Don’t sound the alarm bells yet! Because BSTZ’s 12.1% yield is based on its (discounted) market price. And the fund’s 12% discount means that, based on per-share NAV, BSTZ’s yield on NAV (or what management needs to make in the market to hand us its 12.1% yield on market price) is just 10.6%, which is easier to get than 12.1%.
Now let’s assume that 2022’s bear market was an aberration—a very realistic assumption, as tech continues to drive every aspect of our lives and will continue to do so for decades to come. That makes BSTZ’s 12.1% yield extremely stable: before 2022, its annualized return was 38.9%, or more than triple its current yield.
As bitcoin plunged below $20,000 in mid-June, many cryptocurrency users were distraught over massive losses – with some reporting they had lost their life savings. But one corner of the internet was cheering: Buttcoin, a Reddit subforum launched in 2011 to poke fun at cryptocurrency.
“I’m addicted, I need help,” read one popular post. “I just love watching line go down too much. I always tell myself ‘after it breaks through this next support line, you’ll be satisfied’ but there’s ALWAYS another lower level after that.” “I’m actually hoping it levels off at 20K for tonight,” said another user. “I’m kinda tired and need more time to think of new lower priced memes.”
One tech industry worker who frequents Buttcoin told the Guardian they stayed up until 3am one night to watch the crash unfold. “I know this may sound pathetic but I get a dopamine hit when I see the bitcoin price going down. It was so exciting.” The cryptocurrency flirted with its two-year low again this week, which meant a festive mood at Buttcoin. With about 135,000 members, the subreddit is tiny compared with the millions of people who chat on Reddit’s many pro-cryptocurrency forums.
But frequent contributors to the community – whose logo replaces bitcoin’s golden “B” with a pair of golden buttcheeks – describe it as a kind of digital support group, laced through with dark humor, for people who are horrified by the proliferation of crypto scams and pyramid schemes. Though they may not have the power to destroy crypto, they can make jokes when it stumbles. As Buttcoin members say, instead of mining useless digital coins – they’re “mining comedy gold”.
Just like the crypto culture it mocks, Buttcoin has its own set of memes. Some of them simply flip crypto sayings. Instead of baying for token prices to rise “to the moon”, Buttcoin users chant “to the floor”. But Buttcoin’s most popular jokes take pro-crypto logic and push them to sarcastic extremes. To skewer crypto promoters’ habit of spinning negative news, Buttcoin users comment “This is good for bitcoin” under stories of cryptocurrency catastrophes. (Bitcoin’s been banned in a major country? Good for bitcoin. Bitcoin’s price is plummeting? Good for bitcoin. Someone lost their life savings to a bitcoin scam? You guessed it… good for bitcoin.)
Another crypto catchphrase smugly referencing the technology’s complexity, “Few understand,” has been become a Buttcoin meme in its own right. (For example: a Buttcoin user jokes that a 2003 Toyota Camry’s rising price amid the crypto crash makes the Camry a superior “store of value”. “Every 2003 Camry has a unique VIN and you can drive it to the supermarket too … Few understand,” another replies. “This is good for Toyota,” a third chimes in.)
Buttcoin’s most senior moderator, an IT worker who goes by spookmann, told the Guardian that the 11-year-old forum has “changed as crypto itself as grown and festered. “Originally the tone was almost entirely ‘Haha… that’s so silly!’ And certainly that element is still present, but nowadays there’s an increasingly tragic element of ‘Ugghh… so many people are having their lives ruined by this damn thing!’”
The biggest posts on Buttcoin are shot through with schadenfreude. The subreddit invariably celebrates when bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, dips below symbolic price levels – which to many Buttcoin users, proves that the scam is unraveling. “I definitely get hopeful when it starts seriously dipping or when some stablecoin scheme goes to zero,” said Joe, a systems engineer who browses Buttcoin every day. “There’s a kind of thrill to the validation of it, right? Especially since the crypto bro stereotypes are so obnoxious whenever it goes up in a new bubble.”
But the more controversial posts mock crypto investors themselves for losing money – though there’s disagreement over how far to go. Some highly rated posts on the subreddit argue that there should be no sympathy for victims. “They can go fuck themselves,” read one post in late June, with more than 1,500 upvotes: “Criticizing scams is not being mean. This also isn’t a support group to help console people who lost all of their money on ElonDogPoop Coin.” Not all Buttcoin users agree. “Even if they are assholes, I don’t relish the idea of the average [investor] losing their life savings even if they should have been able to see the scam for what it is. That unambiguously sucks,” Joe says.
There’s a “shared enjoyment of watching things go up in flames”, said M, a Buttcoin user and a tech industry worker, but he still has “sympathy for those drawn into crypto by family members or by the promise of a better life … Times are tough for most.” He pointed to the victims of Celsius, an unlicensed crypto “bank” that offered massive returns to over a million investors in an alleged ponzi scheme that collapsed earlier this summer. The court testimonies – which included pleas from ordinary people who lost their life savings – were “heartbreaking”, M said.
Because Reddit’s pro-cryptocurrency forums quickly delete critical posts, Buttcoin also attracts users looking to commiserate over loved ones who have been caught up in the scam. One support seeker was Izzycc, a 23-year-old social work student whose boyfriend of eight years had become depressed after getting sucked into the NFT fad and losing money.
“I’m absolutely fucking praying for the downfall of cryptocurrency,” she wrote. “It would mean a wakeup call for him, he might finally pull out of this scam, and maybe even start to feel a little better not staring at a number that’s only going down.” Buttcoin users urged Izzycc to break up with her boyfriend – and so she did. “It was for a couple of reasons, but the NFT stuff was kind of a big one,” she told the Guardian.
“I just hated being around it all the time. I hated when he would talk to my family about it. It was just kind of embarrassing, I guess.” She’s doing “a lot better now”, but still browses Buttcoin: “The people are funny, and I know too much about cryptocurrency to not at least casually browse the site at this point.”
Buttcoin sometimes deals with heavier tragedy. In August, a user described a close friend who had gone all-in on crypto before he killed himself. “I was secretly making fun of him,” the user wrote, “till I recently heard the bad news … and it’s hard to feel sorry for crypto bros, but now that I’m here, I do.” “I’m tearing up hearing about this,” wrote one user. Another user observed: “This sub makes a lot of jokes that I consider comic relief, but everything about this sucks, in reality.”
That’s the tension that runs through Buttcoin: beneath the memes lies real pain – and a frustration of watching helplessly as more people around you get hurt. “I think if the crypto cult was just a bunch of dudes off in the woods with a server farm and a maypole there wouldn’t be any real call for Buttcoin to exist,” said Joe. “But it apparently intends to stick around and become a sufficiently big part of the world overall that I don’t have that option.”
Buttcoin isn’t so much a force for resistance as it is a coping mechanism, Joe said, and one that at least for him, may even be backfiring.
“I’m pretty sure the algorithms have actually been sending me more crypto ads since I started posting regularly because they can’t tell the difference between ‘I’m reading about how absurd this is’ and ‘I’m reading about this as a potential sucker/customer.’” He refreshes Buttcoin anyway, hoping he’ll one day witness the price go all the way to the floor.
A Reddit forum devoted to skewering cryptocurrency investors and the industry’s neverending scams says it’s “mining comedy gold” instead of Bitcoin, which it prefers to label Buttcoin. Home to 135,00 members, the Buttcoin community arose in 2011, well-ahead of the current bear market in the crypto industry, which has wiped out some people’s savings. The subreddit’s emblem is gilded butt-cheeks, according to the Guardian.
For dark comic relief, Buttcoiners take widely-used crypto catchphrases by Bitcoin boosters like “going to the moon” and derisively supplant them with going “to the floor.” They also ironically label objectively catastrophic events as “good for Bitcoin,” such as when a country levies a nationwide prohibition on crypto or an entire crypto lender goes bankrupt, leaving destitute creditors in their wake. Other gripes with Bitcoin include its lack of utility in the world and the high environmental footprint associated with mining.
In recent months, there’s been an uptick in groups chronicling the failure of decentralized finance and crypto. From Molly White’s “web3 is going just great” to the Cryptic Critics’ Corner podcast, these places are seen as an antidote to the often breathless coverage of crypto in some corners of the internet.
According to the Guardian, some subreddit users even get a dopamine hit when the price of Bitcoin plunges. “I definitely get hopeful when it starts seriously dipping or when some stablecoin scheme goes to zero,” a Redditor named Joe told the Guardian.
But even Joe has the self-awareness not to plunge too deeply into schadenfreude: “Even if they are assholes, I don’t relish the idea of the average [investor] losing their life savings even if they should have been able to see the scam for what it is. That unambiguously sucks.”
Bybit, established in 2018, is an innovative, fast-growing cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. The company was founded by a team of professionals having expertise in investment banking and the forex industry. Bybit has its headquarters in Singapore and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. It envisions a global economy and provides a seemingly fast, secured, and transparent trading system.
It has embarked on a journey to build the next-gen financial ecosystem powered by innovative and advanced blockchain technology. With more than 1.6 million Bybit users globally, and retail or professional clients, Bybit remains customer-focused and endeavors to provide the best user experience.
Bybit exchange, a crypto derivatives exchange, provides a fair trading environment to trade futures with good leverage in BTC/USD, ETH/USD, XRP/USD, EOS/USD, and BTC/USDT perpetual contracts. According to our Bybit review, this cryptocurrency exchange operates and provides a safe, secured, fair, transparent, and efficient futures trading platform.
Features of Bybit
While there are many similarities between the exchanges, some distinctive features that Bybit has included could make them attractive.
Bybit exchange offers trade derivatives products, including Bitcoin and other cryptos, with three contract options:-
Inverse Perpetual
USDT Perpetual
Inverse Futures
It gives full access to a wide range of trading features, including cross and isolated margin trading. Bybit offers 100X leverage trading, which is not adjustable if utilized in the cross-margin option.
Bybit permits limit order, conditional order or conditional limit order, stop-loss order, and advanced orders such as Good till Cancelled, Immediate or Cancel (IOC order), Fill or Kill. Advanced Order Forms are easy to use and great for quick access.
It provides a host of data analysis tools to access data such as price moving averages, moving average indicators, and monthly price range. It also includes funding data, specific index prices, rolling volatility chart, BTC daily realized volatility, market analysis, and the latest news.
It provides a great trading experience with an intuitive user interface for the crypto community.
Perpetual Futures and The Dual Price Mechanism
A perpetual futures contract is a derivative that does not expire, unlike spot and futures trade contracts. It helps to maximize profit opportunities. Bybit has plans to incorporate quarterly futures contracts and subaccounts when it integrates with the MetaTrader 4 foreign exchange platform.
The Dual Price Mechanism protects traders from trade manipulation or price manipulation, which results in steep losses due to liquidation of positions due to margin shortage or requirement at prevailing market price.
Bybit’s Mark to Market Price
‘Funding’ provides a healthy spread between the spot and the derivative cryptocurrency exchange price. It helps to match spot price and derivative exchange price, once in eight hours, by making the last asset traded price on the crypto platform ‘mark price to market price.’
100X Leveraged Trading
Bybit allows 100x leverage on perpetual futures products. Thus, most traders can increase their leverage to match the maintenance margin requirement. It equips experienced traders in entering sizable positions.
The Contract Loss Mechanism
A leveraged long or short position in a highly volatile market might be liquidated if the price goes lower than the bankruptcy price. Bybit Insurance Fund helps liquidated traders to cover the deficits caused due to losses.
Socialized Loss system Vs Auto-Deleveraging system (ADL)
ADL can protect traders from abnormal losses by potential deleveraging of the highest profitable and leveraged positions in that order. Its unrealized profit ratio and leverage determine the ADL ranking for each position.
Bybit Payments or Deposits into their account can be made through Visa, Mastercard, Electronic Fund Transfer or Wire Transfer, and Bill Payment options. Bybit operates in collaboration with Banxa, Xanpool, MoonPay, and Mercury to support payments through fiat currency. Mobile App users can click on the ‘Assets’ tab on the bottom right-hand corner and click on ‘Deposit.’
Makers and Takers: Users can be classified as either ‘Makers’ or ‘Takers’. Market Makers provide liquidity and market depth, whereas market Makers squeeze the liquidity from the order book. Makers orders are not filled immediately, whereas Takers orders are filled immediately as a market order. Market makers are rewarded for providing liquidity and market depth.
Bybit offers a maker fee (rebate) of 0.025% instead of charging fees to Makers, unlike a fee of 0.075% charged for Takers. The net cost accrued by the Bybit platform is 0.05%. One can withdraw funds by entering the wallet address and clicking the withdrawal button three times a day with a withdrawal fee. Bybit withdrawal limits are 10BTC. It also has limits on daily withdrawals, which is 0.0005 BTC, and Bybit Funding Fee or Funding Rate is 0.02%/ -0.02%.
Services Provided by Bybit Exchange
Currently, Bybit offers trading strategies or options in Inverse Perpetual Contract, USDT Perpetual, and Inverse Contract in Bitcoin, EOS, Ethereum, and Ripple XRP. It offers up to 100x leverage on Bitcoin’s perpetual swap future contract. Deposits are accepted in all the currencies that they trade, i.e., BTC ETH EOS, XRP.
Bybit Promotions
Rewards Hub
For new signups, $50 coupon for first-time deposit within 48 hours and $10 after 48 hours, $5 bonus on a BTC deposit, and $5 coupon on following Bybit on social media channels or networks. It is a user-friendly exchange that also conducts trading competitions offering colossal prize money to the winners.
Bybit bonus can either be used as an initial margin or initial maintenance margin to cover losses or offset the trading fee. Bonus as such cannot be withdrawn. However, the profits derived from trading with bonuses can be withdrawn. As soon as the referee becomes qualified, the bonus is deposited immediately in the trader’s Derivatives Account, which refers to the new user.
Bybit Trading Bot
Trading bots are automated software that trades as per the pre-set conditions by experienced traders. Some trading bots that enable a trader to auto trade in Bybit are TradingView, 3Commas, Alertaton, Autoview, Cornix, FMZ, GoodCrypto, Haasonline Hydor, Mudrex, Profit Trading, ProfitTrailer, Profitview, Sirius Trader, Stacked, TokenBot, Tycoon, Wunderbit, and WBCCLUB.
Bybit Testnet
Bybit testnet enables a potential trader to better understand the key features, options, advantages, and pros and cons without making a deposit. It’s a virtual account provided solely to practice crypto trading with fake money. A new user could explore for informational purposes and have a hands-on experience without actually exposing oneself to the risk of losing money.
Bybit Mobile App
The mobile app is fully compatible with the most advanced Android and iOS systems and can be downloaded from the Google play store. Like desktop, one can buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins through the app, either using a credit card, debit card, or a bank transfer. Though it’s a bit challenging to study TradingView charts and monitor numerous markets on the app, it’s a good tool for monitoring open positions. The crypto account is fully secured through a multi-signature cold storage wallet solution. One can choose to trade various trading pairs like BTC/USD, ETH/USD, XRP/USD, EOS/USD, BTC/USDT, and other perpetual trade contracts. It processes 100,000 transactions per second which ensure the fulfillment of every trade order.
Bybit Security Parameters
Bybit spends 20% of its annual budget on ensuring the platform’s security against the industry average of 15%. Unlike most other exchanges that use ‘hot wallets,’ it has adopted ‘cold wallets,’ which have inbuilt robust security management, features, and measures. All deposit addresses are cold wallet addresses. Offline signatures carry on underlying Asset transfers and withdrawals. Withdrawal requests are subject to three levels of verifications and manual reviews per day to manage risk, and traders can withdraw once every eight hours.
Bybit has a stringent policy regarding crypto-asset consolidation, including system security, physical environment security, operation authentication, encryption techniques, monitoring, and audit. It protects user data and personal information, which is in line with its privacy policy. Each employee of the platform is thoroughly trained, scrutinized, and assessed for internal security control.
The exchange always insists the user have two-factor authentication. The user has to scan the QR code, and a six-digit 2FA code is generated randomly inside the Google Authenticator App. Users should write down the Recovery Key Phrase and store your RKP securely inside a cloud server with full SSL encryption.
Bybit Customer Support
Bybit has a 24/7 customer support team on a global scale to answer the phone or live chat function to resolve any queries or issues. The language options here are English, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency has been trading under major selling pressure. ETH prices have dropped by 40% over the past 30 days. However, expert suggests that this drop may continue further.
July/August can be worst months
Daniel Cheung, Co founder of Pangea Fund Management in a Twitter thread mentioned a massive short opportunity for Ethereum at $1,200 in the next 2 months. He suggests that the market hasn’t yet seen the capitulation yet. It added that July and August are lined up to be the worst months ahead.The fund manager highlighted that currently, the market is in the Macro trade regime. The Bitcoin and Ethereum trends suggest that the crypto market has been trading very sensitively to inflation.
The recent selling pressure has led the Global crypto market cap to plunge by another 5% over the past day. It now stands at $902 billion. The digital asset market recorded its all time high (ATH) of $3 trillion in November 2021.
The world’s second largest crypto is still likely to be levered and liquid bet on Nasdaq and that too for the next 2 months. He believes that Nasdaq still has a lot of room to fail ahead. It is still down by 30% from the recent ATH with a prior drawdown. Cheung added that a further 20% downside is still in the frame for QQQ and 40% for Ethereum.
ETH prices are down by more than 9% in the last 24 hours. It’s trading at an average price of $1,111, at the press time. Its 24 hours trading volume is up by 7% to stand at $14.6 billion. However, it is still down by 77% from its all time high.
Ethereum price analysis is bearish today as we have seen more downside reached over the last 24 hours with a steady downside momentum. Therefore, we expect ETH/USD to drop even lower and look to retrace even lower. The next obvious target is the $1,050 support, which, if broken, would lead to a lot more downside in July. The market has traded in the red over the last 24 hours. The leader, Bitcoin, lost 4.81 percent, while Ethereum a more substantial 9.17 percent. The rest of the top altcoins have followed close by, with some declining even further.
Ethereum price movement in the last 24 hours: Ethereum breaks past $1,175
ETH/USD traded in a range of $1,111.20 to $1,229.74, indicating substantial volatility over the last 24 hours. Trading volume has increased by 5.36 percent, totaling $14.58 billion, while the total market cap trades around $135.5 billion, resulting in market dominance of 15.13 percent.
ETH/USD 4-hour chart: ETH targets $1,050 next?
On the 4-hour chart, we can see the Ethereum price still testing further lows with no signs of reversal just yet. Therefore, more downside should follow to the $1,050 previous local swing low. Ethereum price action has seen strong bullish signals over the second half of June. After the initial reaction from the last swing low at $1,050, ETH/USD retraced to $1,175, setting a strong lower high. However, further downside did not follow as the $1,050 offered strong support.
From the newly found local higher low, ETH rallied higher one more time last week. A new high was set at $1,275, indicating that the several-week bearish momentum could soon end. On Monday, bearish momentum took over as buyers became exhausted. After some , ETH/USD set a lower local high and broke past the $1,775 local support. Late yesterday the decline continued, pushing the Ethereum price as low as the $1,100 mark.
This means that bullish momentum could soon come back. However, as long as bearish candles are seen later today, we expect further downside at the $1,050 previous low to be reached soon. From there, much depends on how the market will react. If a break below this support follows, we could see a lot more downside and both lower lows and highs set in July. Alternatively, if the $1,050 mark holds, ETH could move into consolidation.
Ethereum price analysis is bearish today as we have seen a lot more retrace from the previous swing high at $1,275 so far this week. Since no signs of reversal have followed today, we expect ETH/USD to move even further and target the previous local low. In case it is broken, ETH should see a lot more downside early in July.
Now, reports have emerged Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is looking to raise $2 billion to snap up the assets of embattled crypto lender Celsius which has been hard hit by the latest bitcoin and crypto crash. Goldman Sachs is soliciting crypto funds and traditional financial institutions as part of the deal that could see it buy Celsius’ crypto assets at a discount, it was first reported by Coindesk, with Blockworks adding the deal could happen even if the lender does not declare bankruptcy, citing anonymous sources.
“Goldman didn’t want to buy into the top of the market,” one source told Blockworks. “This is more their style.” Celsius, which had $12 billion in assets under management as of May of this year, has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after suspending user withdrawals from the platform earlier this month, citing “extreme market conditions” and exacerbating a crypto price crash that sent bitcoin spiraling under $20,000.
Celsius has hired restructuring advisors Alvarez & Marsal, it was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal, adding to previous reports Citigroup C+3.3% has been tapped to advise on possible solutions. Goldman Sachs’ reported bid for Celsius’ crypto assets is likely to return some degree of confidence to the market after traders were left rattled by the pace of the bitcoin, ethereum and cryptocurrency sell-off.
“Even so, it may not be the best time to buy, as it may take considerable time before the crypto market digests the recent turmoil and enters a new phase of sustained demand from broad segments of investors, not just stressed asset hunters,” Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro senior market analyst, said via email. The Celsius meltdown, coming hot on the heels of the collapse of the terraUSD stablecoin its support coin luna, has sparked fresh calls for better crypto market and crypto company regulation.
“I suspect after the recent events with Celsius that the U.S. will provide more clarity soon, on regulation towards custodial providers and lenders, to bring more stability to the crypto space,” Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in an emailed note.
Nearly three weeks after Celsius Network suspended fund withdrawals and other operations from its platform, questions about its future are mounting. The maneuvers behind the scenes are also increasing. The crypto firm has hired Alavarez & Marsal, a restructuring advisory firm. Celsius has tapped restructuring attorneys from law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
According to Fortune, which cites anonymous sources familiar with the matter, Goldman Sachs has solicited crypto firms and web 3 firms, the new iteration of the internet, as well as traditional financial institutions and companies specializing in restructuring. Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On June 12, Celsius announced that it would suspend indefinitely various transactions, including withdrawals of funds “due to extreme market conditions.” Today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts,” the company said at the time. “We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations.”
Celsius is a cryptocurrency lending platform. The company allows anyone to borrow cryptocurrency and earn interest for lenders. “Earn high. Borrow low. Change the world,” the firm says on its website. One of its catch phrases is “Borrow like a Billionaire.” Celsius, through its CEL token, promises “financial rewards” as much as 30% extra returns weekly. But some options are not available to U.S. based users.
When it raised $400 million last October from investors led by WestCap and Canadian Caisse de dépôt du Québec (CDPQ), Celsius Network saw its valuation soar to $3 billion. The company wants to be an intermediary between traditional finance and the sphere of cryptocurrencies.
The young businessman tries to solve problems...getty
