At the beginning of August, crypto bank Nuri filed for insolvency in Germany. It attributed major crypto sell-offs, insolvency of Celsius, and other crypto funds as a reason for its move. The bank, notably, had around 500,000 customers and said that the insolvency will not affect its services, customer funds, investments, or the ability for customers to withdraw their assets from the platform.
In a fresh revelation on Tuesday, the bank said that it is “closing down” its business operations. Owing to the business liquidation, it has asked all its users to withdraw funds from their accounts by 18 December at the latest.
During the preliminary insolvency proceedings, the crypto bank worked closely with its insolvency administrators on a restructuring plan that included finding a potential acquirer. However, they weren’t able to find investors.
The released blog post stated,
Customers have access and will be able to withdraw all funds until the aforementioned date. All assets in your Nuri account are safe and unaffected by Nuri’s insolvency. Trading will be possible until 30/11/2022.
Elaborating on what put the company over the edge, Nuri’s CEO Kristina Mayer said,
This year, the challenges have become insuperable due to the tough economical & political environment of the past months, which kept us from raising new funds or finding an acquirer. On top, the insolvency of one of our main business partners worsened the situation significantly and put us over the edge.
Does Celsius come into Nuri’s picture?
Nuri partnered with Celsius to offer Bitcoin interest accounts to its customers. However, when the crypto lender filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the said accounts were halted. So, even though Mayer did not explicitly mention the name of the main insolvent business partner in the latest post, it can be speculated to be Celsius.
Celsius, on its part, is being investigated by US government agencies like Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC], the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] as well as the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]. Since a majority of Celsius’ customers were considered to be unsecured creditors, the federal government seems to be taking a keener look into the case.
Read More: Celsius gains SEC, CFTC’s heed: Investigation underway