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Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

coindesk.com

111–120 of 339 posts

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#111
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its bank transfers between trusted entities why do you need blockchain?

This is called the ACH network and there's no way to trace, undue, or recall transactions. It has been used in bank robberies [1] and numerous financial institutions and payment processors who are not banks use it, not all of whom are trustworthy. [1] https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-grea...

[deleted]

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#112

The fact that the entire crypto market simply followed the public markets in the downturn, rather than being a haven for wealth that people flocked to for safety, means that "Crypto" is unambiguously just another speculative asset like Art (but worse).

I’m confused what the alternative is. If it’s valuable and people lose value somewhere in their life, they will exchange their valuable thing to make up for it.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#113
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way did it seem like a "legit serious business hedge fund"? I'm unclear how Celsius got scammed making loans to a hedge fund that is on record as investing exclusively in crypto since 2018 [1] - did the hedge fund lie about their positions? 1. https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/school-friends-start...

Celsius got huge deposits based on unsustainable yield guarantees (17% I think), they took that crypto and used it as collateral on defi protocols, then took the loans they got and gave it to funds like 3ac, who made money on leveraged carry trades that eventually worked up to Luna which was offering an absurd 20% apy through anchor which was completely unsustainable but basically kept afloat by Luna itself dumping m…

Good old fashioned counter party risk.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#114
post #97
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been really interesting if any of these crypto companies bought a bunch of tanks when times were good. That sounds like a good sci-fi novel and an interesting ending.

You can't buy armed tanks as a private company. That's a sovereign privilege.

You're right. You have to build them in secret like Cobra Command!

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#115
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

money laundering?

I doubt you could invent a better way to launder all that ransomware cyrpto than inventing NFTs.

How does that work? Does I transfer a bunch of "ill gotten" ethereum to someone who agreed to buy my 5k goofy ape NFT for 1 million bucks and now I've made 995k that I can pay taxes on and use as laundered money? There's still a transaction chain of eth so it wouldn't be impossible to figure out what I just tried to do.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#116
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still mining LTC/BTC/DOGE et al, aren't they?

There was an analysis recently that ETH accounts for something like 97 percent of the mining market’s value.

That does not sound right, bitcoin fraction alone should be more than 3%. Maybe GPU mining market value as bitcoin is dominated by ASICs.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#117
One thing to note is that while Celsius, a centralized and opaque yield platform, collapsed, not a single major DeFi protocol failed during a period of enormous stress. MakerDAO, Aave, Uniswap, Curve, Lido and Compound all had perfect 24/7 uptime with zero losses due to unrecoverable debt.

This pretty clearly strengthens the case for pure and transparent DeFi, where anybody can inspect the health of the protocol or the rules of the immutable code. In contrast Celsius failed because it was an opaque black box that primarily lent to other opaque black boxes like Three Arrows Capital.

For a long-time a lot of people just getting into crypto felt like the CeDeFi platforms like Celsius or BlockFi were "safer" than the pure on-chain protocols like Aave or Curve because they didn't have to worry about managing their own keys, there were humans in charge, and a nice corporate entity standing behind it their deposits. As it turns out, decentralized autonomous protocols were substantially safer.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#118
post #97
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been really interesting if any of these crypto companies bought a bunch of tanks when times were good. That sounds like a good sci-fi novel and an interesting ending.

You can't buy armed tanks as a private company. That's a sovereign privilege.

Just buy the tank manufacturer.

But seriously, there are lots of ways to invest in a private military capability that are legal and miles more efficient than tanks. Guarantee you that's happening.

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#119
post #41

And yet the site apparently continues to accept deposits: https://celsius.network Business as usual. Oh yeah, check out our hello bar for that minor detail that withdrawal, swap, and transfers are "currently paused." These guys are going to prison.

I’m getting a popover saying they’ve filed for chapter 11 when I open that

Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet

#120
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like Celsius has a zero balance sheet. They still have substantial liquid assets even if you discount the suspect ones. They just have a lot more more liabilities, thus the bankruptcy.

Are the tokens a senior claim on any of their assets, though?

No. The CEL tokens are not securities, and do not represent any debt or equity. CEL holders are not entitled to any claim on Celsius' assets.

The CEL token's sole purpose was as a tool to offer users promotional rates (and maybe for a bit of insider pump-and-dumping).

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