The founder of bankrupt Celsius Alex Mashinsky moves nearly $1 million out of his wallets

Crypto winter destroyed more than one project. Thus, on June 13, another victim was the Celsius Network. The firm froze withdrawals, exchanges, and transfers between accounts. After that, the capitalization decreased even more. And on July 13, the cryptocurrency lender filed for bankruptcy. 

But the most interesting thing about this story was that the Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky allegedly withdrew $10 million just weeks before customer accounts were frozen. The Financial Times wrote about it, citing unnamed sources. However, there is a possibility that Mashinsky will have to pay back the $10 million he withdrew from Celsius. Under U.S. law, payments to a company 90 days before it goes bankrupt can be revoked for the benefit of all creditors. 

That’s not all. On September 27, the Celsius Network CEO resigned. Still, according to YouTube investigator Coffeezilla, Mashinsky continues to withdraw funds! He has been dumping his Celsius tokens (CEL) into several cryptocurrency wallets. 

According to the crypto analytics platform Nansen, Mashinsky has transferred nearly $1 million worth of CEL and USDC from his wallets to MetaMask and UniSwap since early October. 

“Alex Mashinsky is such a cartoonish villain. After getting called out for stealing money from his company on the brink of bankruptcy, he starts dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars of $CEL tokens across multiple wallets,” Coffeezilla tweeted. 

Alex Mashinsky is such a cartoonish villain. After getting called out for stealing money from his company on the brink of bankruptcy, he starts dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars of $CEL tokens across multiple wallets.
He’s dumping I write this, last trade 3 min ago) pic.twitter.com/Ugg9Q7yDTZ

— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) October 11, 2022

Who is this “villain” Mashinsky? 

Mashinsky, 56, co-founded Celsius in 2017. On the eve of 2022, the company was valued at $3 billion as it managed to raise $600 million in equity investments from the U.S. investment firm WestCap and the Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et Placement du Québec. 

But then, rumors began to emerge that Celsius was paying customers more money than it was getting from loans. Several failed investments precipitated the collapse. In September 2022, Vermont’s financial regulator said that Celsius was insolvent as early as May 13 of this year. 

In May, the company began losing assets catastrophically as two related cryptocurrencies, TerraUSD and LUNA collapsed amid a crypto winter. Then Three Arrows Capital and Voyager also fell as well.