Celsius' Top 3 Execs Cashed Out $42M in Crypto Before Bankruptcy

Crypto lender Celsius' top three executives withdrew $42.13 million in cryptocurrency between May and June 2022, right before the company suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, new court records show. From a report: According to a Statement of Financial Affairs filed late Wednesday, former CEO Alex Mashinsky, former CSO Daniel Leon and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew the funds largely from custody accounts in the form of bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), USDC (USDC) and CEL tokens (CEL). Over a dozen other executives, including the company's Chief Compliance Officer, Oren Blonstein, Chief Risk Officer Rodney Sunada-Wong and new CEO Chris Ferraro did not make any significant withdrawals during that time period, according to the document, one of several filed to the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Mashinsky withdrew about $10 million in cryptocurrency in May 2022. Leon withdrew about $7 million (and an additional $4 million worth of CEL denoted as "collateral") between May 27 and May 31. Goldstein withdrew around $13 million (and an additional $7.8 million worth of CEL also denoted "collateral").

What!?

[OverlordQ]

CryptoBros being scummy? Unpossible!

What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything went as planned. That's how this business is supposed to work.

Shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

[Petersko]

Okay, so that was low hanging fruit. I apologize for heading to the basement. But clearly this is working as designed.

Signs of trust

[dsgrntlxmply]

When seeking financial services, my first preference goes to those with a CTO named "Nuke".

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

Hey, always bet on Nuke.

Re:

[ScienceofSpock]

It's the only way to be sure...or something

Re:Signs of trust

[thegarbz]

Let's just hope he doesn't go through the revolving door to another company, like SpaceX. The last thing we need is Nuke to have anything to do with being in orbit.

Was that wrong?

[algaeman]

Should I not have done that?

Re:

[splutty]

I find it somehow humorous that you're implying this wasn't completely intentional.

Cryptocurrency requires massive parallelism.

[The Evil Atheist]

Sorry, I meant to say that it's a con-currency.

lawsuits away!

[sdinfoserv]

They should shortly expect SEC knocks on the door as well as class action lawsuits from stock holders... Insider trading never goes over well.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Insider trading never goes over well.

Unless you're a member of congress... Works very well for them, and their spouses [yahoo.com]

Re:

[sdinfoserv]

Martha Stewart would beg to differ

Re:

[fustakrakich]

She never served in congress

Re: lawsuits away!

[RegistrationIsDumb83]

"It's a good thing."

Re:

[sdinfoserv]

no, she spent time in jail for insider trading. .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Yes, we are all aware of that, and the point is that if she had been serving in congress at the time, she would be credited on her Wall Street savvy instead of going to prison

Re:

[MrHops]

Insider trading never goes over well.

Unless you're a member of congress... Works very well for them, and their spouses [yahoo.com]

You got the wrong link. You must have meant this [benzinga.com]

Re:

[chas.williams]

I don't think the SEC has the "framework" to regulate crypto. They aren't going to knock on anyone's door. If it's anything, it is not insider trading. It's taking the assets, and someone will argue that they aren't assets, before they walk out the door. The bankruptcy court might be interested in how the company's assets disappeared before settling with the creditors.

huh?

[nomadic]

"withdrew the funds largely from custody accounts"

Wait what? Isn't that like...embezzlement, and not "cashing out"?

Re:

[skogs]

Will it really come back on them?

There are strict rules for financial institutions that deal with real currency.

~some people~ 'bought' crypto currency. Turning real money into something fake.
Scumbags looked at the inflated price of their worthless product...
Turned the worthless product into something real...
and then told the people that bought the fake currency they couldn't pay them back.

Normally this is all the things - insider trading, fraud, embezzlment, shitbaggery, etc.... ...but crypto isn't real...

Re:

[nomadic]

I don't think that would fly in court.

"Your Honor, cryptocurrency isn't a real thing!"

"Then why did you take it?"

totally legit

[awwshit]

Crypto is totally legit with legit real-world use cases, totally. If you don't get in now you're going to miss out!

What? This is an outrage!

[Opportunist]

Where is government oversight that is supposed to protect our ... oh ...

For the record

[quonset]

The con artist wants to defund the SEC [nytimes.com] so this can become common place in the securities markets.

Re:

[gweihir]

So he wants to destroy the US economy for good? Makes sense. There is a reason the SEC exists and it is not some lefty scheme. The SEC was created after the Wall-Street crash of 1929 to prevent a recurrence of that catastrophe. That a certain illiterate does not know or understand this is no surprise though.

Re:

[Deal In One]

What makes you think he does not know or understand that?

If getting rid of SEC gets him a tonne of money, why does he have to care about the others left holding the bag?

Re:

[gweihir]

Well, I think "never attribute to malice which can be amply explained by stupidity" applies here. I may be wrong and this person is just evil enough to care not at all even about drastically negative consequences for others.

And nobody is surprised

[gweihir]

At least nobody with 2 working brain cells.

Enemy of the People

[TwistedGreen]

I learned long ago never to trust anyone named Goldstein.