It seems that the embattled cryptocurrency lender Celsius is wasting no time in withdrawing its Ethereum tokens from the liquid staking platform Lido, which has just allowed withdrawals.
On May 15, a transaction was identified on Celsius wallets for 428,015 stETH (Lido staked Ether) to the Lido staked Ethereum wallet. The huge stash was worth $781 million at the time of transfer, that some believe who is preparing for his retirement.
On-chain data indicates that Celsius made a trial withdrawal of 0.1 stETH a few hours later.
According to bitcoin pioneer and Celsius creditor Simon Dixon, Celsius could be “queuing up to stake directly without the Lido in between.” It could also be loan collateral for Celsius’ restructuring plans, he added.
428k #Celsius $stETH on the move – likely lining up for staking directly without #LIDO in the middle. That’s the loan collateral proposed for NewCo. Should get an update during court hearing this week – 17th May – No court approval needed for this it seems https://t.co/pwT4fR1Qjt https://t.co/4tdSsMegA8
—Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) May 15, 2023
428,000 $stETH has been moved from Celsius, which probably lines up for direct staking without LIDO involved. That is the proposed loan guarantee for NewCo. Should you get an update during this week’s court hearing – May 17 – it appears that court approval is not needed.
The blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence highlighted that Celsius transferred 40,928 ETH last week to a smart contract called “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1”. This was then moved to the Ethereum Beacon Chain escrow contract on May 12, according to etherscan.
Lido, which charges a 10% staking fee, enabled withdrawals on May 15 with a protocol update to v2.
“Lido V2 introduces two main components, with the most user-oriented aspect being Ethereum withdrawal. This allows Ethereum stakers with Lido to directly withdraw ETH through the protocol.”
Lido currently represents 29% of all Ether (ETH) staked: 6.27 million ETH, valued at about $11.3 billion.
For its part, there are 54,046 ETH currently in the withdrawal queue, and this does not include the Celsius stash yetaccording to on-chain analytics firm Nansen.
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