Celsius Network founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10 million from the account before the company froze customer withdrawals and eventually filed for bankruptcy.
According to the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the situation, Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10 million from his account in May before the withdrawal was frozen. A spokesman for the bankrupt crypto lender clarified that the founder of Celsius and his family froze $44 million worth of crypto assets after Mashinsky stepped down as CEO:
“In mid or late May, Mashinsky withdrew interest from his cryptocurrency account, most of which was used to pay state and federal taxes. In the nine months leading up to the withdrawal, he continuously deposited cryptocurrencies in an amount equal to what he withdrew in May.”
Mashinsky co-founded Celsius in 2017, and by the end of last year, the company reached a $3 billion valuation. On July 18, 2022, the crypto lender filed for bankruptcy and has been in litigation ever since. The Vermont Financial Regulatory Department even claimed that the firm was operating in a pyramid scheme and client funds were not safe.
In July, bankruptcy specialists hired by Celsius said that users waived legal rights to their funds at the time they deposited them on the platform, and the company is not required to reimburse them. Then the crypto lender announced that, as part of the asset recovery program for clients, he intends to unlock and return the funds of some users who stored cryptocurrencies on the platform through the court.
However, last week the bankruptcy trustee Celsius filed an objection to the crypto lender’s request for a partial payment of assets to custodial account holders.
Source: Bits
I am an experienced journalist, writer, and editor with a passion for finance and business news. I have been working in the journalism field for over 6 years, covering a variety of topics from finance to technology. As an author at World Stock Market, I specialize in finance business-related topics.
