Bankrupt Crypto Lender Celsius Moved Nearly $900M of ETH Within a Week: Data

Celsius’ wallets have been quite active amid its ongoing bankruptcy and restructuring process. The beleaguered crypto lender – which remains one of the biggest firms with a staked ETH portfolio – has transferred almost $900 million worth of the crypto asset over the past week.

Celsius’ Ether Movement

According to data shared by the blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, Celsius has moved around $20 million of ETH to Wintermute OTC and Custody Withdrawals. Subsequently, the bankrupt crypto lending firm also transferred 30,800 ETH, worth around $57 million at press time price, to a smart contract called “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1.”

The transaction to Figment, which is a non-custodial service, represented one of the largest movements of funds for the crypto lender since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July.

Besides, Arkham also observed that Celsius unstaked the $779 million of ETH it had with the liquid staking derivatives protocol, Lido, which enabled withdrawals on May 15 with a protocol upgrade to v2. The fund movement by Celsius is not surprising given that numerous entities that withdrew their staked ETH have already started re-staking them since mid-April.

Commenting on the move, Bitcoin pioneer and Celsius creditor Simon Dixon speculated that the firm could be “lining up for staking directly without Lido in the middle.” The withdrawn ether may also be used as part of the platforms’ restructuring and creditor repayment plans.

Celsius Story So Far

Earlier this month, Celsius enabled eligible users to withdraw the remaining 6% of distributable custody assets from the platform following court approval. The same users –  mostly those who only ever held funds in custody accounts – were limited to withdrawing up to 94% of their funds until January this year.

The reimbursement move was viewed as a sign of progress for the now-defunct crypto lender, which froze user withdrawals last June as a result of tremendous pressure after the sudden implosion of blockchain project Terra and the subsequent meltdown of the crypto market.

Celsius filed for consolidating US and UK entities amidst poor record-keeping allegations and glaring deficiencies in its internal systems.

Its founder Alex Mashinsky was accused of defrauding investors out of billions of dollars in crypto by hiding the “failing health” of the lending platform. The exec – who stepped down from his CEO role in September – filed a response seeking to dismiss the New York State complaint against him.