Bitcoin News and Finance Report: Celsius CEO Accused of Controlling Crypto Company’s Trading Scheme and Placing Bad Bets Skip to main content

Report: Celsius CEO Accused of Controlling Crypto Company’s Trading Scheme and Placing Bad Bets

Report: Celsius CEO Accused of Controlling Crypto Company's Trading Scheme and Placing Bad Bets

According to a recent report published on Tuesday, the Israeli-American founder and CEO of Celsius Network, Alex Mashinsky, was in charge of the company’s trading strategy. The report, citing multiple people familiar with the matter, said Mashinsky sold millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin in anticipation to buy bitcoin cheap. Except after the CEO allegedly placed this bet, bitcoin markets followed the opposite trend, and the leading crypto asset accumulated some gains.

People Familiar With the Celsius Situation Say Mashinsky Was Trading on ‘Bad Information’

On Tuesday, the Financial Times (FT) reported on the embattled and bankrupt crypto lender Celsius and the company’s CEO. FT’s report citing people familiar with the situation explained that months before the company filed for bankruptcy protection, Mashinsky “took control of Celsius trading strategy.” Allegedly, the founder and CEO of Celsius made a number of bad bets with large sums of bitcoin (BTC) and other assets.

“He was ordering the traders to massively trade the book off of bad information,” one of the people quoted in the report said. “He was slugging around huge chunks of bitcoin,” the anonymous source added. However, another person FT quoted in the report, explains that the Celsius CEO’s perspective may have been said out loud, but the individual insisted “[Mashinsky] was not running the trading desk.”

Despite the contrary opinion from the individual, people familiar with the matter speaking under anonymity, told FT that Mashinsky repeatedly “clashed” with the company’s former CIO. The tensions stirred over Mashinsky allegedly involving himself in specific Celsius trades. “He had a high conviction of how bad the market could move south,” another anonymous source said in the report published on August 16. “He wanted us to start cutting risk however Celsius could,” the person added.

The accusations revolving around Mashinsky follow the crypto lending company’s customers writing letters to the bankruptcy court, and pleading with the authorities to get their funds back. Customers explained that they were suffering from financial hardships over Celsius freezing their funds and said it was a dire emergency to get their funds back. For instance, Celsius customer Brandon Lawrence wrote:

I am one of the little guys … It was my nest egg. Now when I go to work, I drink water and eat any scraps I can find for lunch … I am in deep depression and do not know if I can pull myself out of this.

Additionally, five days ago, a Ripple Labs spokesperson spoke with Reuters and explained that the distributed ledger firm Ripple was “interested in learning about Celsius and its assets.” Celsius is part of a large number of trouble crypto companies in 2022, as Voyager Digital, Babel Finance, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Hodlnaut, and Vauld have all seen financial hardships this year. Most of these companies have sought help from financial regulators or the courts in order to remedy the insolvencies.

What do you think about the report that says Alex Mashinsky was taking charge of the company’s trading strategy? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Custodial Lightning Network Service Attack Discovered by LN ‘Newbie’ — Hacker Strikes 6 LN Custodians

On September 18, a Redditor posted to the r/bitcoin forum and explained how he discovered a way to “attack [the] lightning Network’s custodial services.” The Reddit account dubbed “Reckless Satoshi” wanted to figure out if a “discrepancy between real routing fees and service’s transaction fee can be exploited for a profit.” The researcher disclosed that he wanted to see how large the damage could be and said “it is bad.” 6 Lightning Network Custodial Services Attacked, Researcher Discloses Findings to Offenders Prior to Public Disclosure A Redditor called Reckless Satoshi published a disclosure post on r/bitcoin this past Saturday and disclosed how he had found a vulnerability with routing fees and some of the Lightning Network’s custodial services. The research attack was done in good faith and after it was complete he disclosed the bugs to the offending services before publishing his findings. Reckless Satoshi used the Lightning Network (LN) attack on six different services incl...

Axie Infinity Down 40% Since Last Week’s Price High, Protocol Revenue Outshines Competitors

Last week, the game token leveraged within the Axie Infinity gaming universe skyrocketed to all-time highs, while other crypto markets remained extremely lackluster. During the last seven days, Axie Infinity’s platform token has dropped significantly in value shedding more than 12%. Meanwhile, the game platform’s smooth love potion token has slid over 8% over the last 24 hours. Axie Infinity Down More Than 40% Since All-Time High Not too long ago, the axie infinity (AXS) token was a topical conversation because it reached an all-time high on July 15. At the time, AXS managed to capture $28.93 per unit and since then it has shed 12.8% during the last seven days. The axie infinity (AXS) token is used within the blockchain-based game that involves battles between token-based creatures called “Axies.” AXS is used for the game’s governance system as well as other actions within the game. At the time of writing axie infinity (AXS) is exchanging hands for $16.70 per coin. AXS/USD on Ju...

Play-to-Earn Game From Polker (PKR) Exchange Listing – Endorsed by Akon

The Play-to-Earn NFT based Polker.Game ‘s native token $PKR has been officially listed on the popular centralized exchange BitMart. Polker.game has been in the spotlight recently as Akon, the American R&B superstar and record producer gave his official endorsement of polker stating that the “game is revolutionary” and that Polker is “hands down.. the best play to earn, NFT game in the space.”. With the BitMart listing and celebrity endorsement from Akon, Polker is perfectly positioned to become a major player in the Play-to-Earn league. Watch Akon’s Video Here What is Play-to-Earn? Although not a new concept, play-to-earn has become a trending term due to the popularity of the NFT game AXIE infinity. In the past, previous play-to-earn games have also achieved success – however, thanks to the huge amount of development in the blockchain space in recent years the gaming experience is now massively improved. Play-to-Earn games are essentially free to play and open to anyone and...

China to Crack Down on Copyright Infringement Through NFTs

Authorities in China are going after creators of digital collectibles based on other people’s works of art, the use of which was not authorized. The government offensive is part of a campaign to combat online copyright infringement and piracy with the participation of several departments. Regulators in China Move to Strengthen Copyright Supervision of Online Platforms The National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) has recently launched a campaign against copyright infringement and piracy on the internet, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Internet Information Office of the People’s Republic. A major objective of the initiative is to improve copyright supervision of online businesses by investigating cases involving the sale and distribution of infringing products on short video, live broadcast and e-commerce platforms, and promptly dealing with infringing content, the agency announced in a press r...
Blogarama - Blog Directory