Celsius CEO and Other Execs Cashed Out Up to $23 Million Before Filing for Bankruptcy

Two former executives at crypto lending firm Celsius withdrew up to $23 million (roughly Rs. 190 crore) worth of cryptocurrency between May and June of this year, before the company froze customer withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy. The information was detailed in a Statement of Financial Affairs filed late Wednesday and goes on to show that former CEO Alex Mashinsky and former CSO Daniel Leon withdrew Bitcoin, Ether, USDC, and CEL tokens mainly from custody accounts. The document also detailed transfers made by current CTO Nuke Goldstein during that time.

The court documents, first reported by CoinDesk confirmed that Mashinsky withdrew $10 million (roughly Rs. 80 crore) and Leon withdrew $7 million (roughly Rs. 64 crore) and an additional $4 million (roughly Rs. 30 crore) in CEL tokens. An earlier report also showed that CTO Nick Goldstein withdrew $13 million (roughly Rs. 110 crore) and later $7.8 million (roughly Rs. 65 crore) in CEL, but transactions placed in different associated entities indicated that he shifted his holdings into different accounts within Celsius.

Other executives did not make significant withdrawals during that time period, the document shows.

It is worth noting that Alex Mashinsky resigned as CEO last week, followed by Daniel Leon’s resignation earlier this week. Goldstein has been at the firm as co-founder and CTO since 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Before freezing customer withdrawals and filing for bankruptcy in the summer, Celsius was one of the biggest crypto lending platforms, with nearly $25 billion (roughly Rs. 2,05,900 crore) in assets under management in October 2021. By the end of last year, the firm had reached a $3 billion (roughly Rs. 24,700 crore) valuation.

The withdrawals by Celsius executives don’t look good from the perspective of users who’ve lost out heavily, given how many users were stopped from being able to pull their money out during the liquidity crisis just a few months ago. Celsius halted all withdrawals indefinitely in June and filed for bankruptcy the following month, leaving users with nothing. Celsius owes roughly $4.7 billion (roughly Rs. 38,700 crore) to users but doesn’t have the money to pay them.