Customers who got stiffed by Celsius Network just got stiff-armed by a bankruptcy judge, who ruled their deposits are property of the failed cryptocurrency exchange.
The ruling means 600,000 investors could be out all of the $4.2 billion they deposited in so-called Earn accounts at Celsius before the Jersey City–based firm went belly-up. The hundreds of thousands of account holders at BlockFi, FTX and other failed crypto platforms are probably out of luck as well, thanks to the ruling.
Judge Martin Glenn of U.S. Bankruptcy Court said he understood his opinion would anger a lot of people. Then again, he said, the depositors were speculators chasing promises of 18% yields.
“The court does not take lightly the consequences of this decision on ordinary individuals, many of whom deposited significant savings into the Celsius platform,” Glenn wrote.
Speaking of savings, federal deposit insurance was invented during the New Deal, and the Securities Industry Protection Corp., or SIPC, booted up in 1968 after a paperwork crisis brought Wall Street to a halt. Thanks to the two creations, no depositor has ever lost a dime in a bank failure, and when a brokerage firm collapses investors don’t lose custody of their funds.
Crypto was all about creating an innovative financial system without rules of the road. Glenn found that anyone who signed on for the ride was responsible for knowing what they were getting into.
“Based on the unambiguous contract terms,” the judge wrote, “the court finds and concludes that the cryptocurrency assets deposited in Earn accounts are presumptively property of the estate and not property of the account holders.”
New Jersey regulators took the view that deposits belonged to Celsius customers and asked Glenn to prevent the firm from selling $18 million worth of “stablecoins.” Glenn gave Celsius the green light.
With their savings likely wiped out, crypto customers must make do with reading about whatever fines the Federal Trade Commission can extract from crypto promoters and their merry bands of celebrity touts and influencers.
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