Two executives of beleaguered cryptocurrency lender Celsius appear to have withdrawn millions of their own investments before the company suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, new court filings show.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 Leon may have withdrawn between $2 and $7 million.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