Celsius files for bankruptcy
One month after pausing customer withdrawals, crypto lending firm Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Celsius had recently hired a new group of restructuring lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis, the same group counseling Voyager Digital in their bankruptcy proceedings announced on July 6.
- "Crypto Lender Celsius Files for Bankruptcy After Cash Crunch", Bloomberg
- "Troubled Crypto Lender Celsius Hires New Restructuring Lawyers", The Wall Street Journal
Former asset manager for Celsius files lawsuit alleging the company was a Ponzi scheme
Jason Stone, founder of the KeyFi company who formerly managed assets for Celsius, filed a complaint against Celsius Network in a New York court, alleging the company was operating as a Ponzi scheme and owes them "a significant sum of money". Stone alleged that, despite claiming that Celsius's trading teams would properly hedge against any impermanent loss or loss due to token fluctuation incurred by KeyFi, they were doing nothing of the sort. Upon learning this in March 2021, they terminated their relationship with Celsius. However, Stone alleges that Celsius owes KeyFi "a significant sum of money", which Celsius has not acknowledged. Instead, Stone claims, Celsius has accused them of theft.
The legal complaint reads, "Prior to Plaintiff coming on board, Defendants had no unified, organized, or overarching investment strategy other than lending out the consumer deposits they received. Instead, they were desperately seeking a potential investment that could earn them more than they owed to their depositors. Otherwise, they would have to use additional deposits to pay the interest owed on prior deposits, a classic 'Ponzi scheme.' The recent revelation that Celsius does not have the assets on hand to meet its withdrawal obligations shows that Defendants were, in fact, operating a Ponzi-scheme."
Invictus Capital suspends withdrawals
Invictus Capital, the group operating several cryptos in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, announced to investors that it would be suspending redemptions. The company cited exposure to both Terra and the Celsius project, both of which have gone under in recent months. According to the announcement, the group is pursuing restructuring. The group claimed to have over $135 million under management.
Defi insurer Bancor pauses their impermanent loss protection due to "hostile market conditions"
The defi insurance protocol Bancor announced on June 19 that they would be suspending their impermanent loss protection due to "hostile market conditions". The feature sought to protect users from "impermanent loss", a risk when a person provides liquidity to a pool, the ratio of deposited assets changes, and the person winds up with more of the token that's worth less.
Bancor wrote in their announcement that "Withdrawals performed during this unstable period will not be eligible for IL protection. Users who remain in the protocol will continue earning yields and be entitled to withdraw their fully-protected value when IL protection is reactivated." Many view this as Bancor holding their crypto hostage, because they would take a major loss if they withdrew while IL protection was paused.
The post goes on to say that "two large centralized entities" (likely Celsius and Three Arrows Capital) have rapidly liquidated their $BNT positions and withdrawn a large amount of liquidity; Bancor also wrote that another entity has opened a large short against $BNT.
- "Market Conditions Update — June 19, 2022", Bancor blog
MakerDAO halts Aave–DAI direct deposit due to concerns over risk
MakerDAO voted to disable the Aave—DAI direct deposit module, which previously allowed users to mint DAI (MakerDAO's stablecoin) and deposit it into the Aave lending protocol. According to a MakerDAO team member, 100 million of the 200 million DAI borrowed on the Aave project is borrowed by Celsius and collateralized primarily by stETH. Celsius paused withdrawals several days before MakerDAO's decision, and is apparently underwater. stETH is Lido-staked Ether, which also has been encountering issues amidst the market downturn and heightened withdrawal pressures.
The same MakerDAO team member wrote in the forum that "Contagion risks in DeFi are increasing", and that the project wanted to "cut exposure" to projects that were in trouble. "We could be dealing with Lehman's moment in crypto," he wrote.
Lido-staked Ether (stETH) loses peg
Lido-staked ETH, a project that offers to allow users to stake ETH for the purposes of securing it after the Ethereum "merge" — that is, the ever-delayed move to proof-of-stake. Although stETH is backed 1:1 with ETH, it's not very liquid aside from the primary liquidity on Curve. Huge sell-offs of stETH for ETH have been causing slippage in the Curve pool, which was off peg by around 5% and heavily imbalanced on June 12.
Crypto researcher Small Cap Scientist suggested on June 9 that the sell-offs may have been triggered by a "canary in the coal mine": a 50,000 stETH (nominally worth $45.8 million) sell-off by Alameda Research, a trading firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. SCS also reported that Celsius Network was "quickly running out of liquid funds to pay back their investors", and "they are taking massive loans" against "billions in illiquid positions" to pay back customers.
Celsius pauses all withdrawals
The Celsius platform announced that they would be pausing all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers due to "extreme market conditions".
There has been a lot of concern lately about Celsius' reserves and its ability to honor redemptions, with some speculating that the platform might be underwater and forced to default. Celsius released a blog post on June 7 titled, "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead" where they accused "vocal actors" of "spreading misinformation and confusion", and promised that "Celsius continues to process withdrawals without delay", and that "Celsius has the reserves (and more than enough ETH) to meet obligations".
Celsius' June 12 announcement did not include any details on what their plans would be, just that they hoped it would allow them to "stabilize liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect assets".
On June 14, the Wall Street Journal reported that Celsius had hired restructuring attorneys.
Celsius stops allowing non-accredited investors in the United States to lend out their crypto
Celsius announced that, in order to comply with United States regulations, they would no longer allow non-accredited investors from the U.S. to "earn rewards on" (that is, lend) their crypto using their Earn product. Earn advertises that people can "earn up to 18.63% APY, get paid weekly" by putting their crypto into a Celsius account, which Celsius then lends out in exchange for interest. There are, of course, no insurance protections for the user in case of losses. Non-accredited investors will now be limited to only using their Celsius account to exchange, borrow, or transfer crypto — not lend.
Individual accreditation is based on net worth or income: only those with net worth above $1 million, or yearly income above $200,000, qualify. American Celsius users were largely unhappy with the change, with one writing, "Celsius Network making the rich richer. Shameful."