How the fall of Celsius dragged down crypto investors

Celsius filing for bankruptcy this week surprised virtually no one. Once a platform freezes customer assets, it’s typically all over. But just because the fall of this embattled crypto lender didn’t come as a shock, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a really big deal for the industry.

In October 2021, CEO Alex Mashinsky said the crypto lender had $25 billion in assets under management. Even as recently as May — despite crashing cryptocurrency prices — the lender was managing about $11.8 billion in assets, according to its website. The firm had another $8 billion in client loans, making it one of the world’s biggest names in crypto lending.

Now, Celsius is down to $167 million “in cash on hand,” which it says will provide “ample liquidity” to support operations during the restructuring process.

Meanwhile, Celsius owes its users around $4.7 billion, according to its bankruptcy filing — and there’s an approximate $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet.

It goes to show that leverage is one hell of a drug, but the moment you suck out all that liquidity, it’s a whole lot harder to keep the party going.

The fall of Celsius marks the third major bankruptcy in the crypto ecosystem in two weeks, and it is being billed as crypto’s Lehman Brothers moment — comparing the contagion effect of a failed crypto lender to the fall of a major Wall Street bank that ultimately foretold the 2008 mortgage debt and financial crisis.

Regardless of whether the Celsius implosion portends a larger collapse of the greater crypto ecosystem, the days of customers collecting double-digit annual returns are over. For Celsius, promising those big yields as a means to onboard new users is a big part of what led to its ultimate downfall.

“They were subsidizing it and taking losses to get clients in the door,” said Castle Island Venture’s Nic Carter. “The yields on the other end were fake and subsidized. Basically, they were pulling through returns from [Ponzi schemes].”