At least five companies have bid on Celsius Network’s crypto assets, including Binance, Bank To The Future and Galaxy Digitalaccording to information leaked and shared by cryptocurrency blogger Tiffany Fong.
Fong, a follower of Celsius developments who rose to fame after several exclusive interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried following his collapse, has leaked information from documents that it says were obtained on December 20 “detailing the offers for Celsius Network’s crypto assets”.
In a Substack post, Fong explained that she initially refrained from filtering bids to avoid disrupting the bidding process, but was prompted to do so after recent comments from a lawyer representing Celsius..
“I have refrained from sharing bids publicly to avoid disrupting bidding procedures or adversely affecting customer recoveries; however, at Celsius Network’s court hearing yesterday (1/24/23), Kirkland & Kirkland’s attorney Ellis Ross M. Kwasteniet claimed that the offers ‘have not been convincing,'” Fong explained.
Bidders revealed by Fong include crypto exchange Binance, online investment platform Bank To The Future, digital asset investment manager Galaxy Digital, cryptocurrency trading firm Cumberland DRW, and digital asset investment firm NovaWulf.
According to Fong, the proposals from these cryptocurrency firms were submitted in November 2022, with Fong noting that “for the most part, they are abandoned.”.
The blog post claimed that Binance proposed a $15 million offer for the assets, stating that $12 million would go to Celsius’s estate and $3 million would be distributed to “migrated users on a pro-rated basis.”.
In Binance’s purported summary term sheet, it said that it intends to “acquire and transfer all liquid cryptocurrencies and certain illiquid cryptocurrencies” at fair market value to the Binance platform..
Galaxy Digital proposed to acquire all staked and illiquid assets of Ethereum (ETH) as a “designated stalking bidder” -name given to the initial bidder for the sale of distressed assets- for an approximate amount of USD 67 million.
For his part, Bank To The Future’s offer stated in its transaction structure that all liquid crypto assets and collateral would be returned to creditors on a pro rata basis, under the management of Bank To The Future.
In a January 26 tweet, Bank To The Future CEO Simon Dixon confirmed that the content of the leaked offers relating to his company was accurate.
I can confirm it is a true reflection of the term sheet @BankToTheFuture sent in to give everybody all coins left with no charge & 100% of illiquid assets. https://t.co/MrYGvoB9eB
—Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) January 26, 2023
I can confirm that this is a true reflection of the term sheet @BankToTheFuture sent out to give everyone all remaining free coins and 100% illiquid assets. https://t.co/MrYGvoB9eB
Fong noted in the blog post that she is “only aware of these five offers.” of Celsius crypto assets.
He added that Novawulf’s offer was “particularly interesting”, due to bearing a vague resemblance to “recently proposed restructuring plans by Celsius Network”.
In comments to Cointelegraph, Fong said he has had discussions with “multiple Celsius Network employees” and to his surprise, most of the employees “were not even made aware of the offers.”.
He added that “not even top managers” were aware of this information.
Fong said whate creditors and “even most employees” have been left in the dark about the crypto asset offerings that investors deposited on the platform.
Fong isn’t sure how “things will play out” but believes creditors deserve “more transparency” and they have the right to see the offers on the assets that we “deposit on the platform.”
Binance declined to comment, noting that “as a matter of policy, we do not comment on speculation, rumors, or ongoing deals.”.
Cointelegraph has reached out for comment from Galaxy Digital, Bank To The Future, NovaWulf, and Cumberland DRW.
Update (Jan 27, 6:39AM UTC): Added statement from Binance spokesperson
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