The leaked information on the Celsius auction reveals that the crypto exchange Binance was also among the secret bidders to acquire bankrupt lender’s assets.
In a Substack post on Friday, January 27th, crypto blogger Tiffany Fong published leaked information on Celsius Network’s bidding held between October and December 2022. She gained access to documents “detailing the bids on Celsius Network’s crypto assets” on December 20, 2022, the same day the company filed a presentation in the court about the bidders.
Fong’s information mentions only five bidders that include Binance, online investment platform Bank To The Future, digital asset investment manager Galaxy Digital, crypto trading company Cumberland DRW and digital asset investment firm NovaWulf.
Celsius Never Intended to Sell its Assets
Although Fong received the documents on December 20, she stopped herself from leaking these information “to avoid disrupting the bidding procedures or negatively impacting customer recoveries.”
However, Fong said that she was prompted to do so after a recent hearing in which the firm’s attorney claimed that the bids were not so attractive. According to the blogger, this was not the case as the bids were quite compelling. Creditors and even the firm’s employees were not able to have a look at these bids.
In fact, Celsius never intended to sell its assets and always has plans to restructure to a new company.
The aforementioned bidders were among the thirty bidders that executed non-disclosure agreements. According to Binance’s term sheet, Binance proposed $15 million to “acquire and transfer all liquid and certain illiquid crypto at fair market value to Binance’s platform (users have option to participate).” This includes “$12mm to Celsius estate and $3mm distributed to migrated users on a pro rata basis.”
Bank to the Future proposed to acquire all “liquid crypto assets and collateral returned to creditors pro rata” under the bank’s management. CEO Simon Dixon confirmed the accuracy of leaked data.
Galaxy Digital proposed in its transaction structure to acquire all illiquid and staked ETH assets as a stalking horse bidder for around $67 million. Cumberland DRW offered $1.8 billion in four transactions to “purchase certain tokens and portfolio of alternative investments” excluding CEL token.
According to Fong:
“Novawulf’s bid is particularly interesting in my opinion, because their bid seems to vaguely resemble Celsius Network’s newly-proposed restructuring plans.”
Celsius Files Second Motion to Extend Exclusivity
In the latest development to the Celsius bankruptcy proceedings, the firm has filed the second motion to extend the submission date of the reorganization plan by 44 days from February 15th to March 31st and until June 30th to solicit votes. The next hearing on the case will be held on February 15th.
