Crypto exchange OKX plans to airdrop $3 million worth of USDT to users affected by a market manipulation incident.

On Tuesday, OKX issued an explanation of events pertaining to Celestial – a GameFi project that is part of its venture portfolio.

Celestial’s native token CELT lost over 50% of its value in less than two hours on Feb. 27, leading market participants to question whether market manipulation was involved. Celestial runs on the OEC public chain (formerly known as OKEx Chain), which was developed by OKX. 

After launching an investigation into the events, OKX discovered that the project had promoted its new blockchain game using OKX branding on Feb. 27, which led to CELT’s value nearly doubling. The exchange identified five suspicious profit-making accounts and froze the funds tied to them.

OKX said it had found no evidence that its internal staff was involved in the incident so far, but plans to take serious action if that proves to be the case. 

“OKX strictly prohibits malicious acts such as market manipulation, and has the right to return the illegal gains obtained from market manipulation to the damaged users,” said the exchange. It plans to distribute 2,014,381 USDT seized from the manipulators’ addresses and an additional 1 million USDT to those impacted by the event.

In total, users who bought CELT between 12:00 pm HKT on Feb. 25 and 12:00 pm HKT on Feb. 28 are entitled to be reimbursed from an airdrop worth $3 million in USDT. The exchange plans to release specific rules regarding the airdrop within the next 48 hours.

Celestial issued its own statement regarding the event, saying that it was orchestrated by internal staff by colluding with an external market maker. It plans to distribute $2 million worth of USDT to reimburse affected users.