Celsius Network, a leading cryptocurrency lending platform, is currently facing allegations of market manipulation by its creditors.
The allegations stem from suspicious trades of Celsius’ native token, CEL, between April and August of last year, which the creditors believe may have been used to manipulate the token’s price.
In an attempt to identify the users behind the suspicious trades, the creditors have requested a bankruptcy judge to subpoena FTX for information.
The committee representing Celsius creditors has retained the services of blockchain consultant, Elementus Inc., to investigate the matter.
Elementus Inc. has identified 947 transactions over three days that involved a near one-to-one relationship between CEL token deposits and withdrawals between ten private crypto wallets and wallets on the FTX exchange.
The CEL trades occurred between the date Celsius paused customer withdrawals on June 12 and the company’s Chapter 11 filing on July 13, when the token price was 81 cents.
The creditors believe that these trades may have been a form of market manipulation, such as wash trading, which would violate cryptocurrency market regulations.
Determining whether the trading was legitimate is crucial to a dispute in Celsius’ bankruptcy proceedings, as the company is valuing the CEL coin at 20 cents in its proposed Chapter 11 plan, arguing that the 81-cent price when Celsius went bankrupt was not an accurate reflection of the token’s fair market value.
Meanwhile, Celsius Network has attracted new bidders in a three-way auction, including NovaWulf Digital Management, Fahrenheit LLC, and Blockchain Recovery Investment Committee.
The official committee of Celsius creditors has also won court approval to assert claims, including fraud and negligent misrepresentation, against the failed crypto lender on behalf of its account holders.
The allegations of fraud and misrepresentation have plagued Celsius Network since it filed for bankruptcy with a $1.19 billion deficit in July.
