3 top Celsius execs withdrew $56 million before bankruptcy

It’s come to light that former CEO Alex Mashinsky, former CSO Daniel Leon, and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew $56.12 million in crypto just before Celsius went into bankruptcy.

New court records depict a story of Celsius’ top 3 executives withdrawing large amounts of crypto, mostly from custody accounts, just before the beleaguered company went into bankruptcy.

According to an article earlier today on Coindesk, the 3 executives withdrew the funds in the form of bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), USDC, and CEL tokens.

Former CEO Mashinsky pulled out $10 million in value in May 2022, while Leon took out $7 million plus an additional $4 million in CEL at the end of the same month. Goldstein withdrew around $13 million together with a further $7.8 million in CEL tokens. 

In the same article it was stated that more than a dozen other executives “did not make any significant withdrawals during that time period”. Therefore this information does tend to point the finger of blame at the topmost echelons of the company.

It was reported yesterday by Crypto Daily that Daniel Leon had followed Alex Mashinsky’s lead by resigning his position. Mashinsky tendered his resignation the previous week just before it became common knowledge that he had withdrawn the $10 million. It was reported that he had taken the assets out mostly in order to pay his state and federal taxes.

The future for the community remains uncertain, as the bankruptcy court moves ahead with plans to auction off Celsius assets later in the month. Simon Dixon, CEO of Bank to the Future, has substantial funds frozen on the Celsius platform. He retweeted that what Mashinsky had withdrawn was nearly all the funds he had on the platform.

Can confirm that @Mashinsky withdrew virtually ALL his digital assets from Celsius before the collapse on 5/15/22, leaving only 900k CEL tokens behind, $740 in USDC and dust from ETH and BTC –@camcrews

— Celsius Loans (@CelsiusLoans) October 6, 2022

That the 3 top executives at Celsius all acted in this manner before accounts were frozen at the crypto lender will be a bitter pill to swallow for the Celsius community. 

The next hearing for the ongoing Celsius bankruptcy case is tomorrow 7 October at 10 am E.T.