What happened to Celsius Network Ltd?

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Celsius Network Ltd news every morning. Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius misused investor and customer funds for years before its collapse, including to help its founders cash out tens of millions of dollars, a court-appointed examiner said in a new report.

Did Celsius have a crypto loan collateralized with Bitcoin?

In 2019, Mashinsky told the Financial Times that Celsius had crypto loans collateralized with bitcoin. "The whole thing is just mispriced risk," Cory Klippsten, CEO of crypto investment platform Swan Bitcoin, said of Celsius' business model. Celsius has hired restructuring lawyers, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Is Celsius a risky investment?

Multiple states ordered Celsius last year to stop selling what are known as high-yield crypto products, which many investors warn arerisky because they don’t offer the same FDIC protections as banks if the institutions go under. Currently, residents in the states of New York and Washington can’t purchase assets on Celsius.

How much of Celsius's assets are locked up?

The terms attached to Celsius’ custody wallets, which were purely for storage and did not pay interest, seem to suggest the firm should give that property back to those customers, but those assets only make up 4% of the outstanding pie (about $180 million at today’s prices). The rest of the assets are locked up in Celsius’ high-yield Earn program.