Things are moving fast in the metaverse, and in the wider world of Web3 as a whole. Depending on who you ask, this futuristic, blockchain-based space is either the next big thing for marketing — and for almost everything else — or an overhyped fad. Here’s what you need to know from this past week:
Celsius Network files for bankruptcy
Major crypto lending company Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week. Some analysts are calling the incident crypto’s “Lehman Brothers moment,” drawing a comparison between the crypto lender’s collapse and the fall of the major bank leading into the 2008 financial crisis. In its bankruptcy filing, Celsius Network blamed its financial downfall on the ongoing “crypto winter” and “negative media and social media comments about Celsius, a number of which were unsupported and misleading.” The companies problems, according to the filing, were also compounded by the global economic strain caused by by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The company owes its users — currently numbering around 1.7mn — approximately $4.7bn, per the filing.
