Celsius is Luna 3.0? 😬🤯; Mastercard bets more on Web3 as it wants to make it easier to buy NFTs 💳; Why Metaverse tokens are up 400% YoY? 🤯

Good Morning FinTech, 14 June

Good day Everyone,

And happy Tuesday! It’s getting very cold in the markets… 🥶 In today’s issue we’re obviously going to look at Celsius and why it’s effectively Luna 3.0, Mastercard betting more on Web3 as it wants to simplify the NFT buying process and why Metaverse tokens are up 400% year-over-year (seriously!). So without further ado, let’s jump straight into the good stuff:

Celsius is Luna 3.0? 😬🤯

The (potentially very bad) news 🗞 Celsius, a controversial cryptocurrency lending platform, said on Monday it was pausing all withdrawals, causing more pain in the already fragile crypto market.

The crypto lender has blamed "extreme market conditions" for the drastic move — and claimed this will better ensure that the network can honor its withdrawal obligations over time. Executives also went on to claim that they are determined to act in the best interests of the "entire community" — and insisted customers "will continue to accrue rewards during the pause."

The USP 🥊 Celsius is one of the largest players in the developing crypto lending space, with more than $8B lent out to clients and almost $12B in assets under management as of May. The group, which offers users higher-than-average interest rates on their deposits, is essentially the crypto equivalent of a bank — but without virtually any insurance requirements faced by traditional lenders.

Celsius raised $750M during an oversubscribed funding round last November with a reported valuation of $3.5B at the time (a figure that's guaranteed to have fallen since). The platform claims to have around 1.7M customers.

The impact? This could be Luna 3.0…