Tag: Sam Bankman-Fried

Crypto collapse: 40 states chasing Celsius for possible securities fraud; Texas chasing Voyager and FTX for possible securities fraud

  • By Amy Castor and David Gerard

“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.” 

~ Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Celsius: dodge the cops by diving down the drain

Celsius Network seems to be admitting the company’s dead and it’s not coming back. The debtor companies filed a motion on September 29 to sell off whatever assets remain.

The leading contender is, wait for it, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, who was previously noted to be sniffing around the gaping balance sheet hole called Celsius. [Bloomberg]

Here’s the filing to sell off everything, with its marvelous title in full: Debtors’ Motion Seeking Entry of an Order (I) Approving the Bidding Procedures in Connection with the Sale of Substantially All of the Debtors’ Assets, (II) Scheduling Certain Dates with Respect Thereto, (III) Approving the Form and Manner of Notice Thereof, (IV) Approving Contract Assumption and Assignment Procedures, and (V) Granting Related Relief. [Motion, PDF]

The filing asks to start a bidding process, in a conventional manner, for any remaining spare change to be found in the stiff’s pockets. Celsius would like bids to be put in by November 15, with a hearing to approve the winner around November 28. Celsius hopes to sell any remaining assets by December 20. The auction would be advertised in the New York Times and CoinDesk.  

This isn’t actually a bad idea. We’ve said repeatedly that taking Celsius out of everyone’s misery is the right move. Celsius is an ex-parrot. It is bereft of life. There’s no viable business here. In any ordinary bankruptcy, selling off whatever’s left would be the correct thing to do at this point.

But this isn’t an ordinary bankruptcy. Vermont’s filing sets out the issues. There have been shenanigans here, and Vermont doesn’t want those put aside before the examiner can report: [Objection, PDF]

“As of the Petition Date, at least 40 state securities regulators were engaged in a multistate investigation arising from, inter alia, concerns about potential unregistered securities activity, mismanagement, securities fraud, and market manipulation by Celsius and its principals. At least six of those states had taken regulatory enforcement action against Celsius as of the Petition date, and several more states have done so since then.”

Ownership of the “custody” and “withhold” accounts have yet to be resolved. Do the accounts belong in full to the named creditors or are they part of the general pool of assets? (See our list of Celsius account types.) And who owns the stablecoins?

If any of the assets constitute securities, Vermont wants those to be registered as offerings of securities. (Spoiler: many of them are likely to constitute securities, and none are registered.)

Also unresolved: Celsius insiders withdrew nearly $18 million in cryptos in the weeks before Celsius froze withdrawals on June 12.  

Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, New York, North Dakota, and Oklahoma all concur with Vermont’s objections. The states want to see the examiner’s report before any sale goes forward. They also want to approve the bidders to verify that they are compliant with state regulations, or can become compliant in a timely manner. [Texas objection, PDF; Coordinating states’ objection, PDF]

The US Trustee also objects to the auction. As well as the above objections, the Trustee asks that a privacy ombudsman be appointed, as “customers of these Debtors have significant concerns regarding transparency and irregularities.” [Objection, PDF]

Some individual creditors object on the same grounds — e.g., Daniel Frishberg, who thinks the examiner’s report may show that Celsius was a Ponzi scheme. Immanuel Herrmann has objected on behalf of an unofficial “Steering Committee” of Earn, Loans, and CEL depositors — they don’t object to an asset sale but do feel this current proposal is rushed. [Frishberg objection, PDF; Herrmann objection, PDF]

The forlorn quest for your money

The US Trustee held a 341 creditors’ meeting on October 13. Celsius interim CEO Chris Ferraro responded to questions under oath — and Ferraro knows nothing, nothing! Most of his answers amounted to “I’ll have to follow up on that,” “I don’t know,” and “I need to consult with my lawyers.” [Reddit]

The next Celsius hearing is on October 20 at 10 am ET. There’s an omnibus hearing on November 1 at 11 a.m. ET.  Custody and withhold hearings are scheduled for December 7 and 8 at 9 a.m. ET. [Schedule, PDF]

Celsius has requested to set a “bar date,” the deadline for customers to submit proofs of claims, of December 13, 2022. [Motion, PDF]

If you agree with the schedules of assets and liabilities that Celsius filed earlier, you don’t need to file a claim. Go to page 92 to check your claim. [Schedule, PDF]

If you do need to file a claim, Celsius has submitted a form for approval with the bar date motion. 

An inspector calls

As soon as she was appointed examiner in the Celsius bankruptcy on September 29, Shoba Pillay, previously an assistant US attorney, set to work.

She has already spoken to the debtors. She has outlined the various documents she will be requesting and has set forth a plan on how to avoid duplicating work already done.

Pillay has also filed a “Rule 2004 Motion,” to collect almost anything she might need. This motion will be heard on October 20 and is sure to be granted. [Rule 2004 motion, PDF; Notice motion, PDF]

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy 2004 — that’s a rule number, not a year — allows tremendously broad discovery and deposition. A witness in a 2004 examination is not always entitled to attorney representation or cross-examination and has only a limited right to object to questions. 2004 exams are sometimes referred to as “fishing expeditions” — because they need to be, in order to do their job. [Cullen Dykman; Nolo]

Pillay has proposed a work plan: [Motion, PDF]

  • Interview 15 to 25 witnesses under Rule 2004.
  • Monitor investigations by governmental entities.
  • Hire professionals as needed. She’s already put forth a motion to retain as counsel Jenner & Block, the Chicago law firm where she serves as a partner.
  • Hire Huron Consulting Group as her forensic accounting and financial advisor. 
  • Ascertain if the scope of the investigation needs to be expanded.

Hosting services

Core Scientific provides hosting services to Celsius Mining. Core claims the bankrupt company owes them $5.4 million. They’re tired of subsidizing Celsius’ failing mining business. They want their money, or they want out of their contract before Celsius turns them into a dead parrot too.  

Celsius argues that Core breached their agreement by failing to deploy mining machines on time, and is unjustly trying to pass on power charges. They say Core is in violation of the automatic stay, which stops creditors from trying to collect debts until court bankruptcy proceedings are completed. They have called for a hearing on October 20 to ask the court to enforce the stay. [Filing, PDF; Coindesk; The Block]

Core responded saying that Celsius’ claims were “premised on the incorrect notion that Core Scientific must subsidize the Debtors’ money-losing mining business to the tune of millions of dollars a month.” 

Core says they have deployed all of the mining equipment Celsius gave them and are paying out of pocket to keep the machines running. They are seeking relief from the court to either terminate their contract or to get paid. They want to delay the hearing on October 20 and they are requesting a status conference. [Letter, PDF]

Celsius’s lawyers responded that Core’s request for a status conference is “unwarranted and premature.” We think Celsius is dragging this out for as long as they can run up a tab with Core that will never be paid. [Letter, PDF]

Cold, so cold

There’s a new tool that lets you search the Celsius creditor database with your name and find your coinage! You can use the leaderboard to find the top losers. [Celsiusnetworth; Gizmodo]

US federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York subpoenaed Celsius days after it blocked withdrawals in June. The subpoena was issued by a grand jury. Federal grand juries are used by Department of Justice prosecutors to conduct criminal investigations and potentially issue indictments. [FT, archive] 

The SDNY subpoena is disclosed on p. 48 of this October 5 filing. Pages 48-50 list investigations by multiple state regulators. [Filing, PDF]

Celsius has filed its proposal for a key employee retention plan (KERP). They want to divvy up $2.96 million amongst 62 key non-insider employees — so as to keep them working on the dumb “Kelvin” plan to revive this dead parrot. Celsius currently has 275 employees in total. [Motion, PDF]

Alex Mashinsky, who recently stepped down as Celsius CEO, is dumping his CEL tokens for USDC dollar-equivalent stablecoins. [Twitter, Twitter] 

Celsius cofounder Daniel Leon, who also just stepped down, sold $11.5 million worth of CEL in 2020 and 2021. [FT]

Jason Stone of KeyFi, a.k.a. DeFi whale 0x_b1, used to manage Celsius’ investments. Stone sued Celsius in July, saying they hadn’t paid him and called Celsius a Ponzi scheme. Celsius countersued in August, claiming Stone was an incompetent thief. Anyway, Celsius has just updated their counterclaim. [Complaint, PDF] 

Voyager Digital, FTX, and Texas

In a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the debtor has to file a disclosure statement with their bankruptcy plan. The statement needs to provide “adequate information” about the debtor’s financial affairs so creditors can make an informed decision when they go to vote on the bankruptcy plan. 

Voyager filed its first amended disclosure statement related to its second amended joint plan on October 5. The plan involves selling off all of its assets to FTX US. [Statement, PDF]

The US Trustee objected to Voyager’s disclosure statement. The plan doesn’t say it’s a liquidation plan, but the proposal is basically to liquidate Voyager. The plan also shields Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich and his assets from third-party claims. The Trustee wants clearer disclosure for creditors of precisely what this statement is. [Objection, PDF]  

The Texas State Securities Board objects to the sale of Voyager to FTX, “because, at this time, the Debtor and FTX are not in compliance with Texas law.” Texas thinks the plan “attempts to limit the Debtors’ liability for unlawful post-petition — but pre-sale closing — conduct for which state-regulatory fines and penalties may apply.” That is, they think the quick sale is an attempt to hide malfeasance. [Objection, PDF]

Specifically, Texas thinks FTX has been offering investment contracts that constitute unregistered securities to Texas residents. The affidavit from Joe Rotunda, Director of the TSSA Enforcement Division, details Texas’ ongoing case against Voyager since April 2022 for unlicensed offerings of securities — and then it gets stuck into FTX.

Rotunda states that the interest-bearing accounts offered by FTX US are likely unregistered securities. FTX US claims to be registered with FinCEN as a money transmitter — but it isn’t registered with Texas as a money transmitter. FTX Capital is registered with Texas as a broker-dealer, so that’s nice. 

The FTX trading app lets US customers use FTX non-US despite FTX Trading’s claims not to serve US customers, and despite Rotunda correctly entering his address as Austin, Texas. Rotunda transferred ether to a wallet on FTX. Rotunda is pretty sure the FTX (US or not) yield program is an investment contract and not a registered one.

Rotunda also confirms that “The Enforcement Division is now investigating FTX Trading, FTX US, and their principals, including Sam Bankman-Fried.” [Affidavit, PDF]

The lawyers want their money 

Bankruptcies are expensive. The professionals operating on behalf of Voyager Digital and Celsius Network have begun submitting their bills. 

Kirkland & Ellis in Voyager: $2,994,615.46 for July 5 to July 31. [Fee statement, PDF]

Kirkland & Ellis in Celsius: $2,570,322.67 for July 13 to July 31 July — yes, that’s only two and a half weeks. [Fee statement, PDF]

Akin Gump in Celsius: $741,898.56 for July 13 to Aug. 31. [Fee statement, PDF]

Alvarez & Marsal in Celsius: $2,961,249.80 for July 14 to Aug. 31. [Fee statement, PDF]

Other good news for crypto finance

South Korean crypto investment firm Blockwater Technologies defaulted on a loan from TrueFi, a decentralized lending protocol. TrueFi issued a “notice of default” to Blockwater on October 6 after Blockwater missed a payment on a loan of 3.4 million BUSD. TrueFi said the debt represents about 2% of its total outstanding value. Blockworks’ loan was “restructured” in August, and they paid back 654,000 BUSD at that time. TrueFi wants “a potential court-supervised administrative proceeding” —i.e., putting Blockwater into something like bankruptcy. [TrueFi blog; Bloomberg; Twitter]

Do Kwon is the founder of Terraform Labs, whose UST “stablecoin” collapsed in May, took the rest of crypto down with it, and started us on writing this newsletter series. Kwon talked to Laura Shin for her Unchained podcast on October 14 from a totally legitimate unknown location where he definitely isn’t on the run. The podcast comes out on October 18. [Twitter; Unchained]

Grayscale runs crypto investment funds, most notably GBTC, which Amy has dissected at length. Grayscale is now creating Grayscale Digital Infrastructure Opportunities, to buy up used bitcoin mining rigs from distressed mining companies. These will be used for mining by Foundry Digital, which is also owned by Grayscale owner Digital Currency Group. This will be made available as a fabulous investment opportunity to “accredited investors such as hedge funds and family offices at a minimum investment of $25,000.” [Bloomberg]

The Department of Justice has issued a new report on crypto crime: “The Role Of Law Enforcement In Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related To Digital Assets.” This report was as required by President Biden’s March 2022 executive order on crypto. [DOJ, PDF]

Posted on by Amy Castor 0

Bankrupt Voyager Digital’s search for a buyer — notes from the first committee town hall

If you are interested in Voyager Digital’s Chapter 11 proceedings, the official creditors’ committee town hall held on August 11 is a good one to watch. [YouTube, presentation]

The session was put on by committee lawyers Darren Azman, Chuck Gibbs, and Gregg Steinman; the committee’s financial advisor Michael Cordasco; and Jason Raznick, CEO of trading news site Benzinga, who is the chair of the creditors’ committee. 

Azman and Gibbs, both partners at McDermott Will & Emery, did most of the talking. 

The group outlined the bankruptcy process and offered a (very aggressive, perhaps overly optimistic) timeline for how things could pan out. What follows are a few notes I pulled from the meeting. Read through the entire creditor presentation for more. 

Seeking bids for a buyout

Voyager is soliciting bids from companies to acquire its assets. The creditors’ committee is actively involved in the process. A lot of conversations are happening behind the scenes. Formal bids are due on August 26; an auction will occur on August 29.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX offered a bid earlier, but the creditors’ committee pooh-poohed the bid. 

“I can tell you that FTX is not the only interested party. The company has received several indications of interest,” said Azman. He added that FTX’s offer was the lowest bid.

By the end of August, he said they should have a good idea of who the winning bidder is and the terms of the sale. 

Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Alameda Research have deep ties to Voyager and its bankruptcy wipeout, stretching back to mid-2021. In the Voyager bankruptcy, Alameda is a borrower, a lender, and a shareholder, so I expect FTX is going to have the strongest interest in purchasing Voyager.

A plan of reorganization

The conclusion of Chapter 11 ends with the confirmation of a plan, which could result in a reorganization — or a liquidation. Voyager has 120 days to come up with a plan, and creditors get to vote on whether to accept a plan.   

But before Voyager can put forth a plan for a vote, the company has to file a written disclosure statement, which the court then has to approve.

The disclosure statement is similar to a securities prospectus. It will contain detailed information about the debtor’s financial affairs, how it got into the mess in the first place, a description of its assets, and a description of claims and liabilities and how those claims will be handled. 

The disclosure statement will have a plan of reorganization attached to it, but the two are separate documents.

After Voyager files its disclosure statement, the court will hold a hearing to decide if the statement has adequate information. The plan must be feasible, meaning that after the plan is confirmed, it will not be followed by a plan to liquidate the company under Chapter 7. 

McDermott Will & Emery expect confirmation of a plan by the end of October and distribution of funds sometime in November. 

This is extremely optimistic! Large bankruptcy proceedings generally take years. In the case of QuadrigaCX, which went dark in early 2019, the creditors are still waiting for disbursement as everything is tied up with the Canada Revenue Agency, which insisted on doing its own audit. Similarly, Mt Gox fell apart in early 2014, and its creditors are also still waiting for their money. 

Voyager’s financials 

As of June 30, Voyager has total assets worth USD $1.26 billion:

  • Operating cash: $140 million  
  • Loan portfolio: $470 million 
  • Various crypto holdings: $655 million  

It has total claims so far of $1.8 billion, leaving a hole in its balance sheet of $550 million. 

These numbers do not include the $270 million in cash held in Metropolitan Commercial Bank’s FBO accounts. The numbers also don’t include the $650 million loan to Three Arrows Capital, which 3AC defaulted on. 

Voyager will need to dip into its operating cash to pay its employees and cover benefits and severance pay. Also, bankruptcies are expensive. As David Gerard and I mentioned in a recent crypto crash update, administrative costs could easily end up being $100 million or more. 

(You can read more about Voyager’s mess here.)

A possible interim distribution? 

The creditors’ committee is pursuing an interim distribution. This is rare and unusual, the lawyers explained in the town hall, and only Voyager can put the motion in front of the judge. 

Azman: “We have had productive conversations with Voyager about making an interim distribution and ultimately we are hopeful they will do so.” 

He says there is no guarantee that it will happen or that it will happen any faster than the plan approval.

I seriously doubt that it will happen at all, but we’ll see. 

Insider investigations

Before Voyager filed for bankruptcy, it formed a special committee of certain directors, Azman explained. Part of the special committee’s mandate is to investigate certain actions of insiders (directors and affiliates of Voyager) “with a particular focus on the loan that Voyager made to Three Arrows Capital.”

The special committee retained a separate law firm to handle the investigation. Ultimately, the special committee will produce a report that presents their views on whether insiders are liable for any wrongdoing. 

“It should not surprise any of you to hear that we, the creditors’ committee, believe preliminarily that there are a number of people and companies that may be liable for wrongdoing and should and will be held accountable,” said Azman. “Thus we are conducting our own investigation of insiders and their potential wrongdoing.” 

If the Voyager special committee concludes there are no claims against insiders then Voyager will seek to release those insiders from all liability under their Chapter 11 claim, he warned.

Azman went on to explain that if Voyager succeeds in doing that, the creditors’ committee will not be able to pursue claims that the company has against those insiders. 

“If the creditors’ committee disagrees with the special committee’s conclusions, we will recommend to creditors that they vote to reject any plan that attempts to release insiders so that they do not receive releases. And second, we will reject the confirmation of the plan on the grounds that the releases are improper.” 

Azman and Gibbs say they’ll be putting on more town halls in the near future to keep Voyager creditors updated on the case. 

Claims are due October 3 and McDermott Will & Emery are posting key documents on their website.

If you like my work, consider supporting my writing by subscribing to my Patreon account for as little as $5 a month. 

Posted on by Amy Castor 0

Crypto collapse: 3AC, Voyager, Celsius, and other DeFi casualties

Crypto contagion

The price of Bitcoin has bobbled along above $20,000 since mid-June. There seems to be serious interest in keeping it above that number!

Sam Bankman-Fried has been playing the J. Pierpont Morgan of crypto, rescuing sinking companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets. His companies FTX and Alameda have so far bailed out Voyager Digital and BlockFi. He says he’s got a few billion left to keep other crypto companies from slipping into the dark abyss of liquidation. [Financial Post]  

All Bankman-Fried can do is buy time. The entire cryptosystem is imploding. People are finally realizing that most of the money they thought they had in crypto was imaginary. You didn’t lose money in the crash — you lost your money when you bought crypto.  

We’ve been busy keeping up with the fallout, and mining comedy gold. Who thought staying poor would be this much fun? It was nice of the coiners to suggest it.

The liquidation of Three Arrows Capital

Three Arrows Capital (3AC) went into liquidation as of June 27. Two applications were filed in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) where 3AC is incorporated — one by 3AC themselves, and the other, a provisional liquidation, by 3AC creditor Deribit. [LinkedIn]

In a liquidation, a liquidator is appointed to tally up all the assets of a company and distribute them to creditors. It’s the end of the company. Provisional liquidation is not quite the end yet — it’s like bankruptcy protection, even though you know the company is probably insolvent. Wassielawyer has a great thread explaining all this. [Twitter thread]

Why would 3AC petition to liquidate themselves? CEO Zhu Su has shamelessly listed himself as a creditor in the liquidation!

Teneo is the court-appointed liquidator. They’ll be assessing the assets and the claims against the company and its directors. 

The liquidators are able to convert any crypto assets into US dollars. This could mean a few billion dollars worth of bitcoin getting dumped any day now — or maybe not, if 3AC’s own bitcoin wallets turn out to be empty. 

Less than a week later, 3AC filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the US on July 1. 3AC’s assets are (likely) not in BVI, but in the US and Singapore. Chapter 15 allows the BVI court to be recognized in the US — and protects US assets during the liquidation process. [Bloomberg, archive; bankruptcy filing, PDF] 

According to its bankruptcy filing, 3AC had $3 billion under management in April 2022. Analytics firm Nansen reported the company held $10 billion in assets in March. Money disappears fast in crypto land! [Bloomberg]

Also according to the filing — and we’re sure this is fine! — 3AC’s two founders have gone missing: “Mr. Davies and Mr. Zhu’s current location remains unknown. They are rumored to have left Singapore.” 

The last we heard from Zhu Su on Twitter was a vague tweet on June 14 — “We are in the process of communicating with relevant parties and fully committed to working this out” — a month after the Terra Luna collapse, which set this entire cascade of dominoes falling. [Twitter]

Zhu is currently trying to offload a bungalow in Singapore that he bought in December for SGD$48.8 million (USD$35 million). The house is held in his son’s trust. [Bloomberg]

Fatmanterra (who is pretty on the ball) says he heard Zhu is planning to transfer the funds from the sale of the bungalow to a bank account in Dubai and has no intention of paying creditors with the proceeds. [Twitter]

3AC has other troubles, such as a probe by Singapore’s central bank. The Monetary Authority of Singapore said that 3AC provided them with false information, failed to meet regulatory requirements when moving fund management to the BVI, and ignored limits on assets under management. They weren’t supposed to manage more than SGD$250 million (about $178 million). [MAS press release, PDF; Blockworks]

Oh, look! 3AC’s money has an over-the-counter trading desk: Tai Ping Shan (TPS) Capital. 3AC seems to have a bunch of money sheltered in this entity, and TPS is still trading despite the liquidation order! Sources told Coindesk that TPS was “where the action was” for 3AC,  and where most of 3AC’s treasury is held and traded.

TPS insists it’s completely independent of 3AC, even though Zhu and Davies of 3AC are still part-owners, and the companies have long had multiple links. [CoinDesk; Twitter; CoinDesk]

Peckshield noticed that on 4 July, 3AC transferred $30 million in stablecoins to Kucoin — 10 million USDT and 20 million USDC. This is after the firm was ordered to liquidate. [Twitter]

Rumor has it that 3AC also looked to crypto whales for loans. [Twitter]

3AC also owns a bunch of NFTs — because we all know that NFTs are a great investment and very liquid. [Twitter]

Big plans for Voyager Digital (in bankruptcy)

Less than a week after crypto lender Voyager halted withdrawals, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on July 5. [Filing; press release; Ehrlich Twitter thread; FT] 

Voyager says it has $110 million of cash and “owned crypto assets” on hand, plus $1.3 billion in crypto assets on its platform. It owes nearly $1 million to Google and $75 million to Alameda Research — which recently threw Voyager a lifeline of $485 million. The rest of its large unsecured creditors are customers.

Alameda says it’s “happy to return the Voyager loan and get our collateral back whenever works for Voyage” — we’re not even sure what that means. [Tweet]

Voyager holds $350 million of customer money in an omnibus account at Metropolitan Commercial Bank — just an undifferentiated pile of cash, with only Voyager knowing which customers’ money it is. The judge says “That money belongs to those customers and will go to those customers” — but the company will have to sort through who owns what and conduct a “fraud prevention process” (KYC, we presume) first. [Bloomberg, archive]

Voyager sent its customers an email stressing that it’s not going out of business — it has a plan! [Reddit]

“Under this Plan, which is subject to change given ongoing discussions with other parties, and requires Court approval, customers with crypto in their account(s) will receive in exchange a combination of the crypto in their account(s), proceeds from the 3AC recovery, common shares in the newly reorganized Company, and Voyager tokens. The plan contemplates an opportunity for customers to elect the proportion of common equity and crypto they will receive, subject to certain maximum thresholds.”

Instead of getting your crypto back, you’ll get a corn beef hash of magic beans, and we’ll call that money, okay?

The only issues here are that future Voyager tokens, future proceeds from the 3AC recovery, and future equity in the reorganized company will all be close to worthless.

Putting this nonsense through the bankruptcy court will take months, and Voyager customers get to stand back and watch in horror as the value of their crypto plummets to nothing. Look what’s happened to Mt. Gox customers — they are still waiting.

Jim Chanos weighs in on Voyager’s apparently false claims that its money is FDIC insured: “Making false claims to attract depositors/investors is financial fraud, plain and simple. No regulatory jurisdiction tug-of-war need come into play here, if true.” [Twitter]

The FDIC is also looking into Voyager’s FDIC claims. [WSJ]

Patrick McKenzie writes one of his informative blog posts on money transfer systems, this time explaining what a deposit is — and what a deposit isn’t. Unsurprisingly, he rapidly gets to our friends at Voyager Not-A-Bank. [Kalzumeus]

Voyager is just trying to buy time. But given their apparently false claims of FDIC insurance, the odds they can get a judge to let them avoid liquidation this way are zero.

When the accountants get hold of the books and start going through everything, the real story will be shocking. We saw all this happen with QuadrigaCX.

Voyager stock trading was halted on the Toronto Stock Exchange, after the bankruptcy filing. [Newswire] 

Cornell Law professor Dan Awry writes: “If you thought securities regulation was a jolt to the crypto community, just wait until they learn about bankruptcy law.” [Twitter]

Here’s a Voyager ad preying on artists. Why be a poor artist when you can get rich for free by handing them your crypto? [YouTube]

And here’s a Twitter thread detailing Voyager’s shenanigans in getting a public listing in the first place. They bought a shell company and did a reverse-merger — and then pumped the stock, only to dump it during crypto’s bull run. [Twitter thread]  

It’s worth a closer look at just how much ickiness from Voyager the Metropolitan Commercial Bank risks getting on itself. Dig page 30 of this March 2022 investor presentation, talking up Metropolitan’s foray into crypto customers. The presentation mentions elsewhere how Metropolitan wants to get into crypto. [Investor presentation] 

Celsius: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead!

Celsius Network Ltd. has a new board of directors. They’re all bankruptcy attorneys. [Companies House]

But Celsius is not bankrupt yet! As such! In fact, Celsius is still paying debts! If selectively. Though paying down debts is likely a sign that Celsius is getting its books in order before filing for bankruptcy.

Celsius has repaid $150 million worth of DAI to MakerDAO. Celsius still owes MakerDAO about $82 million in DAI. [FXEmpire]

On July 4, Celsius took out 67,000 ETH ($72 million) from Aave (30,000 ETH) and Compound (37,000 ETH). [Etherscan; Peckshield; Tweet]

Celsius has laid off 150 employees. [Ctech]

Let’s keep in mind that Celsius isn’t just about crypto bros wrecking each other. Celsius investors were lied to and stolen from: “Celsius customers losing hope for locked up crypto.” [WSJ]

Celsius’ CEO has a book on Amazon — you know, in case anyone felt they needed the financial wisdom of Alex Mashinsky in their life. What editor at Wiley thought this was a good decision? “This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in financial independence, cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, blockchain, or the battle between decentralization and centralization.” Also, how to take everyone’s money and lose it playing the DeFi markets. [Amazon]

KeyFi sues Celsius: I’m shocked, shocked to find that Ponziing is going on in here!

0x_b1 was a crypto whale, active on Twitter, who traded vast sums of crypto in the DeFi markets. He was the third-largest DeFi user at one point, with only Alameda Research and Justin Sun doing larger volumes. 0x_b1 was highly respected, yet nobody knew who he was or where he got his wealth from — until now.

0x_b1 turns out to be Jason Stone, the CEO of trading firm KeyFi, a.k.a. Battlestar Capital, who says that KeyFi managed Celsius’ DeFi portfolio from 2020 to 2021. The cryptos that 0x_b1 traded were hundreds of millions of dollars (in crypto) of Celsius customer funds.

As Battlestar Capital, Stone first hooked up with Celsius in March 2019. Battlestar said that customers could earn an astonishing “up to 30 percent” annually from staking their cryptos. [CoinDesk, 2019]

Jason Stone and KeyFi are now suing Celsius, saying they never got paid. A case was filed 7 July by Stone’s attorney, Kyle Roche of Roche Freedman. The complaint is incendiary. [complaint, PDF]

Celsius saw DeFi take off in 2020. Celsius figured they could use customer funds to play the markets and make some yield, so they hired KeyFi to trade for them, with a handshake agreement to share the “hundreds of millions of dollars in profits” —  rather than anything so trad-fi as, e.g., a written contract. (They did finally write up contracts after KeyFi had been working for Celsius for six months.)

Celsius invested cryptos, and its liabilities to customers were denominated in cryptos — but Celsius accounted for everything in US dollars. So if an asset appreciated, Celsius and KeyFi might show a dollar profit — but Celsius might not be able to repurchase the ETH or whatever, to return it to the customer who lent it to them, without losing money to do so.

KeyFi says it would have been trivial to hedge against such an event by purchasing call options at the spot price it originally paid. KeyFi says that Celsius didn’t do this — but told KeyFi it had. It’s not clear why KeyFi didn’t just do something similar themselves.

Celsius gave customers a higher yield for accepting payment in their own CEL tokens. The yield was calculated in dollars. Stone alleges that Celsius used customer bitcoins to pump the price of CEL through 2020, meaning they paid out less CEL for a given dollar yield.

Alex Mashinksy also sold $45 million of his personal CEL holding during this time.

“The Celsius Ponzi Scheme” starts on page 23 of the complaint. Celsius had liabilities to customers denominated in ETH — but bitcoin and ether prices started going up dizzyingly in January 2021:

“87. As customers sought to withdraw their ether deposits, Celsius was forced to buy ether in the open market at historically high prices, suffering heavy losses. Faced with a liquidity crisis, Celsius began to offer double-digit interest rates in order to lure new depositors, whose funds were used to repay earlier depositors and creditors. Thus, while Celsius continued to market itself as a transparent and well capitalized business, in reality, it had become a Ponzi scheme.”

Jason Stone and KeyFi quit in March 2021. 

In September 2021, Roche wrote demanding a full accounting from Celsius, and all the money that Celsius hadn’t paid KeyFi. This was the start of the present action, and this is what KeyFi is suing over.

This suit is important because it sets out a clear claim that Celsius operated as a Ponzi scheme. If the courts find that Celsius was in fact a Ponzi, then any money or cryptos that Celsius paid out to customers or some creditors could be clawed back in bankruptcy.

Stone is seeking damages for an amount “to be determined at trial.”

It’s not clear that Stone was as great a trader as he paints himself. A report from Arkham details how Stone racked up $350 million in losses. [Arkham, PDF]

CoinFLEX

We’ve been watching online interviews with Mark Lamb of CoinFLEX, which stopped withdrawals after $47 million of bitcoin cash (BCH) went missing.

Lamb, who appears alone in the interviews, keeps saying “we” and referring to his “team.” His wife is the chief marketing officer of CoinFLEX and Sudhu Arumugam is listed as a cofounder, but where’s the rest of the team?

How Lamb’s business really works: [Twitter]

  1. Create fictitious dollars (FlexUSD).
  2. Lock them up in a lending scheme.
  3. Offer unsustainably high yields to attract retail deposits. 

CoinFLEX had a special deal with CoinFLEX investor Roger Ver, where it would not liquidate Ver’s account in the event of a margin call — a highly risky proposition for Coinflex.

Ver had taken a large long position in BCH, which was losing value. [Twitter] Lamb claims Ver needed to deposit $47 million to meet a margin call.

But it looks like Lamb liquidated Ver’s BCH anyway by selling it on Binance, even though he’s claimed to know nothing of this. CoinFLEX claims that Ver owes them $47 million, while Ver considers that Lamb broke their agreement.

Lamb lent one-third of all CoinFLEX’s customer money to one guy. Now, with the “significant loss in liquidating his significant FLEX coin positions,” the deficit for Ver’s account is $84 million. CoinFLEX says that they’ve brought an arbitration against Ver in Hong Kong. It will take 12 months to get a judgment. [blog post]

Meanwhile, CoinFLEX are … issuing a new coin (rvUSD), out of thin air, to pay back their existing customers.

Lamb explained his incredible plan to rescue CoinFLEX in an interview with Ash Bennington on Real Vision. Lamb refused to reveal how big the hole in his books actually is. “I can’t comment on those specific figures at this time.” [Twitter]

But creditors will be made whole and transparency will come — in the fabulous future, along with an audit! 

Lamb’s plan includes issuing rvUSD, a debt token. You get 20% returns — also to be paid in rvUSD. Lamb says the returns will be funded by Ver paying the money, which Ver still maintains he doesn’t owe.

Lamb has clearly thought all of this through carefully with his “team.” Their hard work is apparent — the rvUSD whitepaper is three pages long. [Whitepaper, PDF]

Who would want to buy rvUSD? Lamb told Bennington he has lots of “big” investors lined up. CoinFLEX says it will resume 10% of withdrawals in a week and everyone will get their money as soon as these big investors come through. 

There are 197 million FlexUSD tokens in the wild, according to Coingecko. Even if Ver owes $47 million, there should still be a difference of $150 million in collateral there — if FlexUSD is indeed fully backed by USDC, as Lamb claims it is. Additionally, CoinFLEX still has $10 million of BCH held for its bridge to its SmartBCH chain. And there are user deposits on the exchange.

So what percentage of assets does CoinFLEX still have? Why won’t they release assets and liabilities?

Other legitimate trading firms that are definitely stable going concerns

BlockFi: BlockFi and FTX reached a deal on 1 July, where FTX will buy BlockFi for a “variable price of up to $240 million based on performance triggers” that will provide Blockfi with a $400 million credit facility.  [BlockFi; Twitter thread]

Babel: Orthogonal Trading issued a default to defunct DeFi lender Babel regarding a $10 million loan. [Twitter]

Genesis: Genesis is one of the largest cryptocurrency brokerages for institutional investors. The company confirmed speculation that it had exposure to 3AC. Genesis is part of Digital Currency Group, who put in some cash to prop them up. [Bloomberg; Twitter]  

Blockchain.com: another crypto exchange that thought playing the DeFi markets with customer funds was a good and cool idea. They lost $270 million in loans to 3AC. They told shareholders: “Three Arrows is rapidly becoming insolvent and the default impact is approximately $270 million worth of cryptocurrency and U.S. dollar loans from Blockchain.com.” [CoinDesk]

Uprise: Korean crypto startup Uprise lost $20 million shorting luna in May. They were right about luna — but their short was wiped out anyway, by a sudden spike in the price. [The Block]

CoinLoan: Crypto lender CoinLoan restricted withdrawal limits on 4 July — from $500,000 per day down to only $5,000 per day. They are calling this a “temporary change” to withdrawal limits. Presumably, it’s “temporary” because it will soon be $0. [Tweet; Bitfinex Tweet] 

They directly say this is because of “a spike in withdrawals of assets from CoinLoan.” How dare you try to get your funds out! [blog, archive]

Nexo: has signed a term sheet to acquire 100% of defunct Indian crypto exchange Vauld. It’s not clear what’s left in Vauld, or if Nexo thinks they can pillage the corpse but pretend Vauld’s considerable liabilities to customers don’t exist. [Coindesk]

Our friend Michel does the numbers. He estimates $300 million was lost by Vauld in the UST/luna collapse. [Twitter]

Bitcoin Core ETP: this is an exchange-traded product, a bit like a bitcoin ETF, but based in Switzerland. How does the ETP plan to make money? By lending out the bitcoins on the DeFi markets! That will definitely work out fine, probably. [FT, paywalled]

Posted on by Amy Castor 2