Note: The article has been updated after receiving further information from the representatives of the mentioned individuals.
The crypto-verse was hit with an array of bankruptcy filings this year. Celsius and Three Arrows Capital shook the industry by abruptly suspending withdrawals. As their users panicked insolvency filings followed suit. Crypto lender Celsius has been making headlines lately for the departure of its executives as well as the sale of its assets. Amidst all of this, it was brought to light that involved executives had withdrawn $17 million right before declaring insolvency.
According to the updated findings, Celsius’s former CEO Alex Mashinsky and former CSO Daniel Leon cashed out a significant amount of funds. The Statement of Financial Affairs noted that these funds were withdrawn from custody accounts and were in the form of Bitcoin [BTC], CEL tokens [CEL], USDC, and Ethereum [ETH].
It should be noted that Celsius filed for bankruptcy in July, and suspended withdrawals in June. The aforementioned funds were moved between May and June 2022.
In May 2022, Mashinsky withdrew around $10 million in cryptocurrencies. Between May 27 and May 31, Celsius CSO Leon withdrew around $7 million (with an extra $4 million in CEL designated as collateral).
CTO Nuke Goldstein was suspected to withdrew around $13 million and $7.8 million worth of CEL tokens as collateral as well. However, Mr.Goldstein’s representative has reached out to Watcher Guru, clarifying that Mr.Goldstein actually deposited $90,000 CEL tokens more, 3 weeks before the withdrawals were suspended. Most of his recent transactions remained within the Celsius network, justifying he did not move any collateral from his personal accounts at Celsius.
Are other Celsius execs off the radar?
While the community was puzzled about the aforementioned information, so were the other executives. The filing noted that a dozen other executives including the company’s latest CEO Chris Ferraro hadn’t made any major withdrawals during the time.
Others like the Chief Compliance Officer, Oren Blonstein as well as the Chief Risk Officer Rodney Sunada-Wong were also in the clear. While the next hearing is scheduled to take place on the 7th of October, Celsius customers were certainly not happy about the latest revelation.