Celsius deployed over US$1 billion of assets in decentralized finance (DeFi) and incurred over US$350 million in losses, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.
See related article: Celsius repays debts, cuts jobs amid bankruptcy fears
Fast facts
- Celsius handed over about US$530 million in corporate funds to an asset manager who used “high-risk leveraged crypto trading strategies,” the report said. Arkham identified the asset manager in question as Jason Stone, CEO of investment firm KeyFi.
- The trades resulted in forced liquidations worth US$61 million and total apparent losses of US$350 million, the report stated. From the over US$1 billion deployed in DeFi, Celsius lost more than US$100 million to hacks, the analysis said.
- According to the report, when the market crash in early June put Celsius at risk of liquidation, the firm put in roughly US$750 million to maintain the positions, “potentially playing a key role in forcing them to freeze withdrawals.”
- Despite holding billions of dollars worth of its native token CEL, the firm spent more than US$350 million purchasing the token from exchanges.
- Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky sold US$45 million worth of CEL tokens, sometimes on the same exchanges where Celsius used corporate funds to buy CEL, the report said.
- An email seeking a comment from Celsius on the Arkham report went unanswered outside of U.S. business hours.
See related article: Celsius shuffles its board of directors amid liquidity crisis
