Bitcoin Price Drops Below $25K After Celsius Freeze

On Sunday night, one of the largest crypto lending platforms, Celsius Network, suddenly announced a "pause" on withdrawals and transfers, citing "extreme market conditions". Celsius announced its halving as markets opened in Asia on Monday morning, and the price of its CEL token — priced at around $7 a year ago — lost a third of its remaining value, falling to just 21 cents. .

In the hours following the halving, the prices of other cryptocurrencies also declined. CoinMarketCap's global cryptocurrency tracker showed a total market cap of crypto assets (including stablecoins and tokens) below $1 trillion as of 8:53AM ET, falling from its peak of $3 trillion last November.

According to Coinbase, the price of bitcoin is down about 12% over the past 24 hours, losing nearly $2,000 from its price since the Celsius news, falling to $23,510.15 as of 9:33AM ET. The last time the price of bitcoin was so low was in December 2020, when it peaked at $69,000 on November 9, 2021. Today's drop continues the downward trend CoinDesk reported for 12 weeks in a row, up from $49,000 in March.

The same goes for Ethereum, which is down about 14 percent in the last day and fell from $1,355 before the Celsius announcement to around $1,238 by 9:33 AM ET. On November 9 last year, it also reached $4,891.

Bitcoin mining is a major area to watch, with Cointelegraph reporting that older mining rigs run the risk of closure at current prices and mining difficulty, based on data from BitDeer and others. That is the point where they will no longer be profitable to operate - the benefit is canceled out by the cost of electricity to power the rig.

According to the report, the new-generation hardware may continue to deliver profits even if prices continue to drop, but a unit like Antminer's S17+ (73T) rig could turn unprofitable if the price drops below $22,000. This also aligns with research showing that if the price stays below $25,200, it could significantly reduce the bitcoin network's global energy use by 120 TWh annually.

Amidst these falling crypto prices, major trading exchange Binance also halted bitcoin withdrawals. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the freeze at 8 a.m. ET, saying it was “due to a backlog caused by a stuck transaction.” Originally, he said the break would resolve in about 30 minutes, but he later added, "It will probably take a little longer to heal than my initial estimate."

At around 11:30 AM ET, Binance announced that bitcoin network withdrawals have resumed. According to the support page, “We are still working to process pending Bitcoin (BTC) network withdrawals, and this is expected to be completed in the next few hours. Please note that pending Bitcoin (BTC) network withdrawals will take place in the next few hours.” Will be processed in a few hours." will be rejected. In this case, the concerned users will have to resubmit their withdrawal requests."

According to CNBC, the price of shares of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which had already announced a hiring freeze and canceled accepted job offers, fell 20 percent before the market opened on Monday morning. Its share prices are down 76 per cent compared to last year.