The crypto community is questioning why bankrupt lender Celsius may have turned down seemingly fair bids for its assets from five major companies in the space.

What Happened: Five major crypto firms are known to have bid on bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network’s crypto assets, according to leaked bids shared by Celsius creditor Tiffany Fong.

In a Substack post, Fong disclosed secret bids made by Binance, Bank to the Future, NovaWulf, Cumberland/DRW, and Galaxy Digital.

She claims to have received the detailed bids in December, but refrained from sharing them so as to not disrupt the bidding process until Celsius’s lawyers declared the bids to be uncompelling in a Jan. 24 court hearing.

The Bids: The biggest name on the list of bids shared is undoubtedly Binance. The largest crypto exchange bid to acquire all liquid tokens and certain illiquid tokens at fair market value, excluding exchange tokens FTT and CEL.

It proposed a $15 million purchase, with $12 million to the Celsius estate and $3 million distributed to users who migrated over on a pro-rata basis.

Crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital proposed acquiring all Celsius’s illiquid and staked Ethereum for $66.8 million – an 83% discount to the 5-day moving average price per unit of ETH. Galaxy Digital’s source of financing was all cash.

Investment platform Bank To The Future’s terms were that all liquid crypto assets would be returned to creditors pro rata through custody accounts. The firm’s CEO Simon Dixon confirmed these terms in a Jan. 26 tweet.

Crypto trading firm Cumberland DRW proposed acquiring certain tokens, excluding CEL, and a portfolio of alternative investments for $1.8 billion. It offered $583 million for BTC and ETH, which was a 15% discount to market value at the time of its bid in November.

Investment firm NovaWulf proposed acquiring “substantially all assets” including loans and Celsius’s mining business, contributing between $60 million to $120 million to a newly structured company. Fong noted that this bid was particularly interesting, seeing as it resembles Celsius’s own newly proposed restructuring plans.

Why Weren’t These Bids Disclosed? That seems to be the question on everyone’s mind in light of this new information. Based on the statements made by Celsius’s legal representative in bankruptcy court, it appears that the deals did not materialize because Celsius did not deem them to be compelling enough. These offers, however, would have potentially returned money to creditors far sooner than things are playing out currently.

The lack of transparency about what appears to be fair bids caused a significant degree of outcry from the crypto community.

 

https://twitter.com/CelVictimClub/status/1618702965426225152

Celsius is reportedly exploring the prospect of creating a new crypto banking project called “Kelvin” and issuing a new token to repay creditors – both plans have been met with harsh criticism from the community of affected users.