celsius

Celsius Network chooses NovaWulf bid for bankruptcy exit

Feb 15 (Reuters) – Crypto lender Celsius Network will seek to exit bankruptcy under the guidance of asset manager NovaWulf Digital Management, which will take over the operations of a new company that will be owned by Celsius customers, the company said at a court hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The proposed deal with NovaWulf should allow Celsius to exit Chapter 11 and begin returning crypto assets to customers in June, Celsius attorney Ross Kwasteniet said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Celsius selected NovaWulf’s bid out of more than 130 proposals received, saying that NovaWulf was the only finalist that intended to maintain long-term control over Celsius’ harder-to-liquidate assets, like its loan portfolio and bitcoin mining business.

Those assets would be owned by Celsius creditors and managed by NovaWulf under a profit-sharing agreement if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn, who is overseeing Celsius’ Chapter 11 process, and creditors sign off on the deal.

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Crypto lenders such as Celsius boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing customers with the promise of high interest rates on their cryptocurrency deposits and the ability to borrow against their crypto assets. But many companies in the highly interconnected sector went bankrupt

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February 19, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Celsius execs withdrew millions before bankruptcy, court filings show

LONDON – Top executives at Celsius Network withdrew at least US$30 million (S$43 million) of cryptocurrencies in the month before suspending customer withdrawals from the platform, according to bankruptcy court documents filed by lawyers for the crypto lender in New York late on Wednesday.

Then chief executive officer Alex Mashinsky, co-founder Daniel Leon and chief technology officer Nuke Goldstein, and entities identified in the documents as their related parties, made a series of withdrawals in May totalling more than US$30 million, these filings allege. Transactions were denominated in Bitcoin, Ether, USDC, Celsius’ own CEL token and “wrapped” Bitcoin.

Mr Mashinsky withdrew about US$10 million in cryptocurrency over the course of May, the filing shows. Mr Leon withdrew about US$7 million; net of deposits, his withdrawals amounted to about US$3.1 million, the documents show. The calculations include withdrawals by entities and people related to the executives, as designated by Celsius advisers.

Mr Goldstein withdrew around US$13 million. Lawyers for Mr Goldstein told Bloomberg that net of deposits, the withdrawals attributed to the CTO and related parties totalled about US$559,000.

A Celsius representative did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Neither Mr Mashinsky nor Mr Leon returned multiple

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October 10, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Celsius Executives Cashed Out Shortly Before Bankruptcy

Two executives of beleaguered cryptocurrency lender Celsius appear to have withdrawn millions of their own investments before the company suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, new court filings show.

According to a statement of financial affairs filed in New York bankruptcy court late Wednesday, former CEO Alex Mashinsky and former chief strategy officer Daniel Leon made multiple withdrawals from their cryptocurrency accounts in May, days before the company halted all such transactions.

Mashinsky and related parties withdrew approximately $10 million worth of bitcoin, ether, USD coin and Celsius’ CEL token, according to the documents. Leon may have withdrawn between $2 and $7 million.

Forbes previously reported that CTO Nuke Goldstein also made withdrawals.

His lawyers, however, disputed this interpretation of the transactions listed in the filings. “The reality is that Mr. Goldstein did not withdraw even one dollar in the four weeks prior to the pause—to the contrary, he deposited over $90,000 in CEL tokens in late May, just three weeks before the pause,” wrote Avi Weitzman and Leo Tsao of the Paul

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October 7, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Lawyers for Celsius investors file motion to have interests represented in court

An international law firm representing groups of Celsius investors has filed a motion to appoint a committee to represent their interests in the crypto lending firm’s bankruptcy case.

In a Thursday filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, lawyers with the law firm Milbank requested the appointment of an “Official Preferred Equity Committee” to represent certain Celsius shareholders. According to the filing, the equity holders “urgently require their own fiduciary” for representation in court alongside Celsius debtors and an Unsecured Creditors Committee, or UCC.

“The need for a fiduciary to pursue the Equity Holders’ interests is particularly critical when one considers the practical realities of these cases: There are only two groups of real economic stakeholders — the retail customers and the Equity Holders,” said the court filing. “Not only is the UCC laser focused on maximizing value for the customers, without regard for the Equity Holders, but the Debtors also have made it abundantly clear that the UCC is their partner, and these cases are ‘all about the customer.’”

The legal team added:

“An estate fiduciary is needed to take the other side of this dispute before a plan of reorganization is

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September 25, 2022 by ATTORNEY
April 2024
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