withdrawals

Celsius execs withdrew millions before bankruptcy, court filings show

LONDON – Top executives at Celsius Network withdrew at least US$30 million (S$43 million) of cryptocurrencies in the month before suspending customer withdrawals from the platform, according to bankruptcy court documents filed by lawyers for the crypto lender in New York late on Wednesday.

Then chief executive officer Alex Mashinsky, co-founder Daniel Leon and chief technology officer Nuke Goldstein, and entities identified in the documents as their related parties, made a series of withdrawals in May totalling more than US$30 million, these filings allege. Transactions were denominated in Bitcoin, Ether, USDC, Celsius’ own CEL token and “wrapped” Bitcoin.

Mr Mashinsky withdrew about US$10 million in cryptocurrency over the course of May, the filing shows. Mr Leon withdrew about US$7 million; net of deposits, his withdrawals amounted to about US$3.1 million, the documents show. The calculations include withdrawals by entities and people related to the executives, as designated by Celsius advisers.

Mr Goldstein withdrew around US$13 million. Lawyers for Mr Goldstein told Bloomberg that net of deposits, the withdrawals attributed to the CTO and related parties totalled about US$559,000.

A Celsius representative did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Neither Mr Mashinsky nor Mr Leon returned multiple

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Celsius Executives Cashed Out Shortly Before Bankruptcy

Two executives of beleaguered cryptocurrency lender Celsius appear to have withdrawn millions of their own investments before the company suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, new court filings show.

According to a statement of financial affairs filed in New York bankruptcy court late Wednesday, former CEO Alex Mashinsky and former chief strategy officer Daniel Leon made multiple withdrawals from their cryptocurrency accounts in May, days before the company halted all such transactions.

Mashinsky and related parties withdrew approximately $10 million worth of bitcoin, ether, USD coin and Celsius’ CEL token, according to the documents. Leon may have withdrawn between $2 and $7 million.

Forbes previously reported that CTO Nuke Goldstein also made withdrawals.

His lawyers, however, disputed this interpretation of the transactions listed in the filings. “The reality is that Mr. Goldstein did not withdraw even one dollar in the four weeks prior to the pause—to the contrary, he deposited over $90,000 in CEL tokens in late May, just three weeks before the pause,” wrote Avi Weitzman and Leo Tsao of the Paul

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