Celsius transfers $780 million worth of stETH, while Lido Finance permits withdrawals
The defunct cryptocurrency loan company Celsius moved about $428k in staked Ether (stETH), which is now worth $780m.
On Monday, a staked ether (stETH) token with a market value of nearly $780 million was transferred from the bankrupt loan platform Celsius. While Celsius is now in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings, the move may be part of a larger plan to recapture unavailable ether.
This exchange takes place at the same moment as stETH provider Lido Finance begins offering withdrawals. This development suggests Celsius is working on a plan to reclaim its unavailable ether despite their current insolvency. Not all of the company’s stETH has been claimed, however a small withdrawal of 0.1 stETH was made from Lido a few hours later, most likely for testing purposes.
With the new version 2 update that Lido Finance released yesterday, stETH holders may now withdraw ether at a 1:1 ratio. Withdrawal requests from stETH holders have been accepted since yesterday.
In the past, Celsius’s approach entailed staking ETH acquired via its Lido Finance-powered centralized lending platform. Celsius might earn interest on client cash by using this stETH as collateral in DeFi platforms like Aave. Holders could receive interest while still having access to their cash thanks to Lido’s liquid staking service, which was an efficient alternative to staking with Ethereum validators.
Celsius had trouble converting their stETH holdings back to ETH in the middle of 2022 due to liquidity issues resulting from the company’s severe financial difficulties and eventual bankruptcy filing. The reason for this was that the lone exchange that allowed stETH trading (Curve) lacked the liquidity to process ether-to-stETH swaps without significant slippage. Celsius was unable to get their ether because of this snag. Now that Lido has implemented a withdrawal option, Celsius has a higher chance of retrieving their ETH and redeploying it to their ongoing reorganization efforts.
