Vauld Halts Crypto Withdrawals, Citing Market Conditions

Crypto trading and lending platform Vauld on Monday announced it is suspending withdrawals, trading and deposits on its platform due to the financial challenges it is facing on account of volatile market conditions and financial difficulties of its business partners.

The Singapore-based firm, which has most of its employees in India, said couple of weeks back asserted that it did not have any exposure to Celsius or Three Arrows Capital and remained liquid despite market conditions.

The firm had assured investors at the time that all withdrawals would continue to be processed in the future.

In a statement issued by Vauld CEO Darshan Bathija on Monday, he said the financial difficulties of key business partners affected Vauld and that customers have withdrawn over $197.7 million since June 12, when the decline of the cryptocurrency market was triggered by the collapse of Terraform Lab’s UST stablecoin, the Celsius network pausing withdrawals and Three Arrows Capital defaulting on its loans.

Bathija said Vauld is open to potential options such as restructuring and for this purpose, it has hired Kroll Pte Limited as its financial advisor, as well as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP as the company’s legal advisors in India and Singapore, respectively.

“We intend to apply to the Singapore courts for a moratorium i.e. a suspension of the commencement or continuation of any proceedings against the relevant companies so as to give us breathing space to carry out the proposed restructuring exercise,” Bathija said.