TechFlow news, according to a report by Shoba Pillay, the independent examiner in the Celsius bankruptcy case, as cited by The Block, Celsius sold a total of 203 million CEL tokens during its 2018 initial coin offering (ICO) and private sales, raising only $32 million from the ICO instead of the anticipated $50 million. Celsius also spent at least $558 million buying back CEL tokens using a strategy known as the "flywheel," which involved selling CEL tokens in private over-the-counter transactions and offsetting those sales with purchases on public markets to influence the token’s trading price.
Additionally, Celsius repeatedly exceeded credit limits, including providing multi-billion dollar loans to Tether. As of July 2021, one-third of Celsius’ institutional loan portfolio was completely unsecured, and more than half was under-collateralized.
As previously reported, in documents filed on Tuesday, independent examiner Shoba Pillay stated that Celsius misled its investors and at times used funds from new customers to pay withdrawals for other customers—a hallmark characteristic of a Ponzi scheme.Source link
