Embattled cryptocurrencies lending platform Celsius Network is looking to restructure its liabilities, weeks after the US venture froze withdrawals and transfers, citing “extreme” market conditions during the current crypto crash.
Extreme volatility in digital asset markets prompted the freeze, leaving its 1.7 million customers unable to redeem their holdings.
Celsius gathered crypto deposits from retail customers and invested them in the equivalent of the wholesale market, including “decentralised finance” sites that use blockchain to offer services from loans to insurance outside the traditional financial sector.
Celsius promised retail customers huge returns, sometimes as much as 19% annually. The lure of big profits has led individual investors to pour assets into Celsius and platforms like it until the crypto crash.
Celsius has hired restructuring consultants from advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal to advise on a possible bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
The crypto crash has seen digital assets lose more than $400 billion since TerraUSD, a major stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, collapsed in May.
Bitcoin tumbled another 6% to $18,866.77 late on Thursday, leaving it down over 70% from its peak last November.
- Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell
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