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The bankrupt lender is set to hold auctions for its assets in January, while it's been given the green light to return some customer funds.
Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network has attracted 30 potential bidders over its various assets including its retail platform and mining business.
According to a company presentation filed on Dec. 20, more than 125 parties were contacted since September, with 30 potential bidders executing non-disclosure agreements — a legal contract used to protect sensitive information about a company or the bidding terms — typically required during negotiations.
Celsius said that so far, it has received multiple bids proposing a variety of potential transaction and business structures to acquire its assets — such as migrating Celsius customers to the acquirer’s platform along with a haircut of their assets — among other structures.
The lending platform also revealed it had received a number of single asset bids.
With the bidding deadline reached on Dec. 12, the auction for Celsius' various assets is now set for Jan. 10, 2023, after being pushed back from the original date of Dec. 15, according to earlier documents filed by Celsius.
The latest presentation notes that as of Nov. 25 the company held coins valued at approximately $2.6 billion, but after this is combined with the value of its non-coin assets they are still $1.2 billion short of being able to pay off all debts.
Its ongoing mining operations have been successful however, with Celsius claiming that it has generated positive operating cash flow every month this year as it continues to deploy more mining rigs.
Related: BlockFi files motion to return frozen crypto to wallet users
In related news, on Dec. 20 bankruptcy judge Martin Glenn has just granted a motion previously filed by Celsius on Sep. 1, allowing them to reopen withdrawals for a minority of their customers.
The assets eligible to be withdrawn are those that were only ever held in the Custody Program and for amounts less than $7,575 which were transferred from Earn or Borrow Programs into the Custody program within 90 days of its filing for bankruptcy on Jul. 13.
The order also applies to "ineligible Withhold Assets," with assets included in this definition to be determined following meetings between Celsius, the Withhold Ad Hoc Group and the Celsius Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors.
Bahamas media reports that Sam Bankman-Fried lodged a new bid for bail just two days after a judge denied his previous application and called the FTX founder a flight risk.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reportedly filed a new application for bail in the Bahamas Supreme Court following his previous unsuccessful bail bid.
Local media on Dec. 15 reported the founder submitted the application and that it would be heard before the court in just over one month's time on Jan. 17, 2023. However it did not cite any sources.
Previously, on Dec. 13, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had argued for him to be let out on bail set at $250,000 as he had no prior convictions and was suffering from depression and insomnia. The presiding judge denied bail calling the crypto executive a flight risk.
Bankman-Fried is remanded at Fox Hill Prison, the only jail in the Bahamas. A 2021 United States State Department report said conditions at Fox Hill were “harsh” and overcrowded with poor medical care, sanitation and nutrition. Correctional officers were alleged to physically abuse detainees.
Related: FTX Bahamas co-CEO Ryan Salame blew the whistle on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried
Extradition to the U.S. is on the cards as the Bahamian government has said it will “promptly” process any extradition request as the exchange founder faces eight charges including money laundering, wire fraud, and securities fraud.
The slew of charges could see Bankman-Fried land in jail for 115 years, but legal commentators have told Cointelegraph there is a "lot to play out" saying the case could take years until it's resolved.
A U.S. judge is ordering stablecoin issuer Tether to produce proof of the assets it claims backs up its dollar-pegged USDT, the largest crypto asset of its kind in the world. In a new court order, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York mandates that Tether provide financial records on the […]
The post Judge Orders Tether To Produce Proof of Assets Backing USDT appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
The judge ruled domestic law doesn’t apply to Binance as it is not an exchange domestic to the U.S. and that the case was filed “too late”.
A federal judge has dismissed a class action complaint asserting Binance violated U.S. securities laws by not registering as a broker-dealer or exchange, and sold crypto tokens which were not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The original complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was brought by a group of investors who say they invested in the tokens EOS, BNT, SNT, QSP, KNC, TRX, FUN, ICX, OMG, LEND, ELF, and CVC around 2017 and 2018. An amended complaint was filed, only listing nine tokens, with BNT, SMT, and CVC removed.
The investors said the tokens had lost much of their value since purchasing, and were seeking compensation for the price paid for the tokens and the fees paid to Binance in connection with their purchases.
“Binance and the Issuers wrongfully engaged in millions of transactions, including the solicitation, offer, and sale of securities, without registering the Tokens as securities, and without Binance registering with the SEC as an exchange or broker-dealer. As a result, investors were not informed of the significant risks inherent in these investments, as federal and state securities laws require.”
The investors further claimed that Binance capitalized on the enthusiasm brought on by cryptocurrencies, marketing tokens and initial coin offerings (ICOs) on behalf of projects, and profited off the associated trading fees, and added they “purchased the tokens with a reasonable expectation of profit from owning them”.
In his decision on Thursday, March 31st, Judge Andrew L. Carter said that as the investors waited more than a year after purchasing the tokens to file the complaint, they had sued too late. Most of the tokens were purchased in 2018 and the original filing wasn’t until April 2020.
The investors argued that as the SEC published a framework asserting digital tokens were securities in April 2020, that the timeline for complaint submission should have started then, but Carter found that the relevant laws apply when the supposed violation occurs, not when it is detected.
Judge Carter also said that domestic securities laws are not applicable to Binance, as it is not a domestic exchange in the U.S., being headquartered in the Cayman Islands. Binance does use Amazon Web Services to host its infrastructure andthat is based in the U.S., but that isn’t enough to consider Binance as a domestic exchange.
Related: Voyager ordered by New Jersey to 'cease and desist’
"Plaintiffs must allege more than stating that plaintiffs bought tokens while located in the U.S. and that title passed in whole or in part over servers located in California that host Binance's website," Carter wrote in the motion.
This isn’t the only class action lawsuit filed against a crypto exchange on such grounds. On March 11, a suit was filed against Coinbase in the same court, alleging it's operating as an unregistered securities exchange. Similar arguments are being directed at Coinbase, with plaintiffs saying they were not warned of the risks of cryptocurrency investments.
Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.