Celsius Sells $25 Million Worth of Digital Assets with Court Approval

Celsius, the bankrupt crypto lender, has recently liquidated approximately $25 million worth of various altcoins after receiving approval from a US court to convert them into BTC and ETH. This move comes as part of the network’s efforts to distribute these assets to their creditors.

Among the altcoins liquidated were Chainlink (LINK), BNB coin, Synthetix Network (SNX), 1Inch, and 0x Protocol (ZRX), as well as Shiba Inu’s BONE, among others. The court permitted Celsius to convert a total of $170 million worth of altcoins into BTC and ETH.

Last week, Celsius Network transferred around $70 million worth of altcoins from their “Fireblocks Custody” wallet to the “Celsius Network: OTC” wallet in multiple transactions.

According to data from the on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, Celsius moved various altcoins, including 1.27 million LINK ($8.5 million), 2.83 million SNX ($7.84 million), 12,597 BNB ($3 million), 4.45 million 1INCH ($2.26 million), 8.53 million ZRX ($1.9 million), and 439,000 FTX ($713,000) to FalconX. Additionally, 186,149 BONE tokens worth approximately $235,000 were transferred to the OKX crypto exchange.

Prior to these recent liquidations, Celsius held nearly $164.5 million worth of altcoins on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain. However, with the current sell-off, the network has now sold nearly $25 million worth of these tokens.

It was previously reported that Celsius had transferred approximately $160 million worth of wrapped Bitcoin to third-party wallets before filing for bankruptcy in July 2022. Many of these wallets are reportedly controlled by Wintermute.

Under the new agreement, crypto consortium Fahrenheit, the new owner of Celsius Network, is expected to receive between $450 million and $500 million in liquid cryptocurrencies.

Former Celsius CEO, Alex Mashinsky, is facing legal troubles as well. He was arrested on July 13 and has been charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud, among other criminal charges. Mashinsky pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his bail has been set at $40 million.

Celsius Network and Mashinsky are facing multiple lawsuits from the US Securities Exchange (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The SEC is accusing the former CEO and the crypto lender of committing securities fraud, alleging that CEL and Celsius’ Earn product constituted securities.