Celsius moves $59M MATIC, LINK, other altcoins to exchange

• Celsius has moved over $59 million of altcoins to FalconX ahead of possible liquidation.
• The crypto lender plans to convert the tokens to BTC or ETH.
• Celsius’s largest altcoin holding is its native CEL token, currently worth over $106 million.

Celsius Network moved millions of dollars’ worth of altcoins on Monday, among them Polygon (MATIC), Chainlink (LINK) and Aave (AAVE).

As CoinJournal reported in June, the US bankruptcy court recently allowed Celsius to proceed with plans to liquidate multiple coins and tokens beginning July 1, 2023. 

The crypto lender had indicated it would be converting these into Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as part of the preparation towards reimbursing customers impacted by the crypto company’s bankruptcy filing in July 2022.

Celsius moves Polygon, Chainlink and Aave tokens to FalconX

According to on-data from crypto security platform Arkham Intelligence, Celsius deposited $59.4 million worth of various tokens to institutional crypto trading platform FalconX. Per Arkham data, Celsius transferred $13.6 million worth of MATIC, $10.7 million in LINK, and $7.3 million in AAVE to an address controlled by FalconX.

The Data Nerd shared details of the transfers:

45 minutes ago, @CelsiusNetwork began to sell altcoin by depositing to exchange.

So far they have sent:
• 1.2M $LINK ($8.5M)
• 2.8M $SNX ($7.8M)
• 12.5K $BNB ($3M)
and more

They still have $65M in alt left (excluding $BTC, $ETH, $CEL and stablecoin) per @ArkhamIntel. pic.twitter.com/cy5lEr123Z

— The Data Nerd (@OnchainDataNerd) July 17, 2023

The transactions followed earlier transfers involving $8.5 million worth of LINK, $7.8 million of SNX (a Synthetix native token) and $3 million in BNB token. Other tokens sent to the FalconX wallet address include 0x Protocol (ZRX), 1inch (1INCH) FTX Token (FTT) and Tether Gold (XAUT).

Blockchain sleuth Lookonchain also highlighted that FalconX had started depositing the received tokens onto Binance – suggesting the sale was on.

After these transfers, Dune Analytics data shows the Celsius portfolio still holds over $106 million worth of its native token CEL, $47 million in other altcoins (including $16.5 million in MATIC and $12.7 million in AAVE) and over $29 million in stablecoins ($24 million in USDC and $2 million in USDT).

While Celsius moves ahead with plans to convert the altcoins into BTC or ETH, blockchain firm Kaiko recently noted that the Celsius team might find it difficult to liquidate a number of tokens due to their illiquidity. One of these is CEL, which has next to zero liquidity.

Elsewhere, analysts at Kaiko say the potential sell-off pressure from the liquidations could impact downward pressure on some of the tokens.