Babel Finance Suspended Withdrawals Due to ‘Liquidity Pressures’

According to a blog post published on Friday, Babel Finance, based in Hong Kong, has become the latest crypto lending platform to halt redemptions and withdrawals. The company declared that it was “under exceptional liquidity difficulties” as a result of a “border crash” in cryptocurrency prices, citing a scarcity of readily available assets as the reason for its decision to block consumers from withdrawing funds from their accounts. “Recently, the crypto market has seen significant oscillations, and several industry institutions have suffered conductive risk occurrences,” Babel Finance stated on its website. Celsius Has Paused the Withdrawals It comes after a similar decision by crypto lending company Celsius announced earlier this week. It would block consumers from withdrawing or transferring assets because its stakes in Lido Staked Ethereum (stETH) were jeopardized after stETH’s peg to ETH was removed. The ripple effects of stETH’s de-pegging are still being felt, with crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) facing insolvency concerns. Babel’s Tower Following an $80 million Series B fundraising round, Babel Finance was valued at $2 billion less than a month ago. The company described itself as the “world’s leading wholesale crypto financial services provider” in a statement accompanying the announcement. By the end of 2021, the company had $3 billion in outstanding loans and $800 million in monthly derivatives trading...