Babel Finance Suffers Executive Exits Amid Liquidity Crunch

Key staff are being axed or voluntarily leaving troubled cryptocurrency lender Babel Finance, a source told Blockworks

article-image

Del Wang, co-founder and CEO of Babel Finance | Source: Babel Finance

share

key takeaways

  • Babel Finance executives are jumping ship as the firm grapples with a shortage of funds
  • Head of partnerships Yulong Liu and director of communications Jacynth Yang will exit soon

A mixture of firings and voluntary resignations made up a round of recent exits from embattled crypto lender Babel Finance, Blockworks has learned. Departures are still underway, a source familiar with the matter said.

Babel’s wave of employee exits was first reported by The Block. Blockworks independently confirmed that among those leaving in the near future are Yulong Liu, who served as head of partnerships at Babel for nearly three years, and communications director Jacynth Wang.

Liu’s LinkedIn profile appears to be deleted, while Wang’s shows she’s been employed at Babel for three months. Liu could not be reached and Wang didn’t respond to Blockworks’ request for comment.

Hong Kong-based Babel also lost branding lead Yiwei Wang. He told Blockworks he left voluntarily in mid-April for new opportunities.

Launched in 2018, Babel Finance provides institutions, high-net worth accredited investors and crypto miners with lending and trading services in bitcoin, ether and stablecoins. Among its backers are Sequoia Capital China, Tiger Global Management and Dragonfly Capital.

Blockworks confirmed that other employees have left Babel’s partnerships team led by Liu. These include global partnership directors Sean Yang and Xavier Xiang, and another member of the same team, Yuchen Jiang. After working at Babel for less than a year, all three left in June. Blockworks hasn’t received independent confirmation on whether they left voluntarily.

Other key hires have reportedly deleted their LinkedIn profiles. Among them are head of lending Lei Tong and Ryan Wu, managing director and chief operating officer.

The departures come as Babel faces a critical shortage of funds. The lender abruptly suspended withdrawals on June 17 — citing “unusual liquidity pressures” — similar to competitors Celsius, Finblox and CoinFLEX. Shortly after, Babel announced steps to manage its liquidity status, but it hasn’t provided an update on this matter since.

In any case, Babel joins a string of companies in the crypto industry that have lost staff recently. BlockFi said it would cut 20% of its workforce; Coinbase lost 18%; Gemini terminated 10%; and Crypto.com laid off 5%.

Babel reportedly had 170 employees as of May, but its LinkedIn page now shows 44 people work there. The reduced number listed may be attributed to deleted profiles. 

The firm, which had roughly 500 institutional clients as of May, recently raised $80 million at a $2 billion valuation. At the end of 2021, it held an outstanding loan balance of over $3 billion, according to press materials.

Babel Finance didn’t return Blockworks’ request for comment.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

“Be prepared to do more with less,” Framework Ventures’ Michael Anderson said

article-image

Q1 may have been “frustrating,” but things are looking brighter for Q2

article-image

Tokens worth 20% of the current supply of the TRUMP memecoin launched by the president are set to be unlocked tomorrow

article-image

A crypto-industry lawsuit is “moot” now that Joint Resolution 25 has been signed into law

article-image

Fed Chair Powell assured markets that the labor market is in “good place,” dependent on price stability

article-image

As uncertainty reigns, the Philly Fed manufacturing index fell to a multi-year low, but layoffs have slowed