Jul 25, 2023 09:00
A couple months ago, if someone told me that Celsius or FTX would re-open for business in the near future, becoming active platforms in the crypto space once again, I think I would have laughed. In my mind, they were labeled 'done' or 'finished' or 'destroyed'... or all of the above.
Back in April one of my collogues here at the Global Crypto Press Association broke the story of a potential re-launch of FTX"s exchange. At the time, I honestly though the likelihood of this happening was small. While I knew the information was accurate, and our source wasn't lying when he said it was being 'evaluated' - I figured this was something they were probably required to do before officially dismantling the company forever, and selling the pieces as part of their bankruptcy.
A couple weeks after we published our story, it began popping up places like The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Bloomberg, etc - but now it was the new CEO confirming an FTX re-launch was a real possibility,
Now, another one of 2022's most dramatic crypto-company-collapses is attempting to rise from the ashes...
The company believes that over time, and by using shares of the new company, and crypto, they will be able to fully settle their debts along with an additional 5%.
Celsius, which is under control of newly appointed leadership, has been working hard to pull out of the bankruptcy, which it declared in July 2022.
It's up to the people they owe, along with the judge overseeing the bankruptcy to decide if they should be allowed to re-launch or officially shut down - in some cases trust in the company is so low, creditors believe re-launching will end with them losing the rest.
Judges typically strongly favor a company re-launching over the alternative, as long as the problems that led to their failure have been addressed.
Similar to the FTX situation, re-launching is the only way those who are owed could get 100% of it back...
If there's no business earning a profit, there's no way to replace whatever funds were truly lost.
The alternative is selling off everything the company still owns, splitting up whatever that brings in, and that will be the last payment their former investors will receive.
According to the judicial documents presented by Celsius, their current path forward is finding support not just within the company itself but also the creditors' committee representing those they have a debt with. In total more than 30,000 of those with claims are on boar, hoping this is how they will recover funds of USD 7.8 billion.
Judge Martin Glenn, who is overseeing the bankrupcy case has recived a request from Celsius to review their proposal at the hearing on August 10, where Celsius hopes they will be given the approval needed to move forward.
The proposal would have the platform re-lunched by October and those they owe receiving payments before the end of this year.
Another thing Celsius has in Common with FTX: Former CEO's Out on Bail Awaiting Trial...
Alexander Mashinsky, former Celsius CEO spent one night behind bars, his wife came the following day and signed off on a massive $40 million bond that will allow him to remain out of prison while awaiting trial.
Former CEO Alexander MashinskyWhile he's out of prison, he's far from free - obviously international travel is off the table, that's standard. But in a sign that authorities believe there's at least a small chance he will try to flee before his trial, they've limited his movement to within NY state, if he leaves NY state land he immediately faces arrest.
Mashinsky faces fraud charges from both the SEC and CFTC.
I'm Trying to Figure out if I like these Companies Coming Back or Not?
That's the part I can't figure out. If the people to blame for everything that went wrong are truly removed, so closing the company now would only hurt the innocent employees who have been trying to clean up the mess others left behind, I support them.
The problem never was 'companies named Celsius are bad' it was 'A bad person runs a company named Celsius'...allegedly.
With time it may change, but there's certain names and words that cause me to cringe a bit when hearing them. FTX, Terra Luna, Celsius, Bitconnect... Craig Wright, etc.
I'm sure most people see where I'm coming -so the right thing to do is this bias in mind so I make sure the new teams running these platforms when they re-launch are given a fair chance to prove themselves.
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