Celsius executives withdrew $42 million in cryptocurrency before the company went bankrupt

Two of the platform's top executives withdrew, among other things, $11,8 million worth of native tokens used as collateral

06.10.2022 - 13:15

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What’s new? According to new court documents in the bankruptcy case of crypto lending platform Celsius, former CEO Alex Mashinsky, former chief strategy officer Daniel Leon and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew $41,8 million in cryptocurrency from the company. This occurred between May and June 2022, before the platform froze customer funds. Withdrawals for users were suspended on June 13. The executives withdrew funds mostly from deposit accounts in bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC stablecoin, and native Celsius tokens (CEL), CoinDesk writes.

CoinDesk material

What else does the publication report? According to the statement, other top Celsius executives, including Chief Compliance Officer Oren Blonstein, Chief Risk Officer Rodney Sunada-Wong, and new CEO Chris Ferraro, did not withdraw significant sums during that time period.

Earlier, it was revealed that Mashinsky withdrew $10 million from the company in the weeks before client funds were frozen. He explained that he kept $44 million in cryptocurrency on the platform. Leon withdrew $7 million as well as $4 million in CEL tokens between May 27 and May 31. Goldstein withdrew $13 million and another $7,8 million in CEL, also marked as “collateral.”

The bankruptcy court ordered Celsius to regularly inform the Unsecured Creditors Committee about its financial status and cash management. The company must disclose its monthly budget and fiat balance sheet, wage expenses, taxes, as well as various performance measures of its bitcoin mining business and any proceeds from the sale of BTC. The firm must also obtain committee approval for any "critical vendor payment" over $50 000.

The next bankruptcy hearing is scheduled for October 7.

The Celsius situation. In September, Mashinsky presented a new plan to restructure Celsius into a custodial platform but later tendered his resignation. A week later, Daniel Leon also left his post. On October 20, the company will hold an auction to sell its assets. According to Bloomberg, Sam Bankman-Fried, head of the FTX crypto exchange, is going to take part in it.

To find out what led to the collapse of Celsius, one of the largest cryptocurrency lenders, see GetBlock Magazine's article.

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