Bankrupt Celsius Stakes $75M Ether Via Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1

Bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius has transferred $75 million of Ether via Figment, an institutional-grade staking service. The transfer in question is among the largest fund transfers for Celsius Network since its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in July. 

Explaining the scenario, crypto Twitter user alto | dollar.eth rang the bells on Celsius having moved their 428,000 stETH before Lido withdrawals were to go live. Breaking the news, alto | dollar.eth tweeted:

As per Arkham Intelligence, Celsius transferred approximately 40,928 ETH to a crypto wallet in fourteen transactions during the May 10 and May 12 period. The Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1 account, an aggregation smart contract, went on to deposit the funds into staking contracts, as per Etherscan. alto | dollar.eth also shared the Etherscan transaction hash to substantiate their claim.

Quote-tweeting alto | dollar.eth, Simon Dixon, CEO, BankToTheFuture, a global online investment platform, elaborated on the instance. He stated Celsius staked by bypassing Lido, and that further clarification would be available in the upcoming court hearing.

Simon Dixon wrote, 428k #Celsius $stETH on the move – likely lining up for staking directly without #LIDO in the middle. That’s the loan collateral proposed for NewCo. Should get an update during court hearing this week – 17th May – No court approval needed for this it seems.

By depositing to a staking service, Celsius earns rewards on its digital asset holdings while its restructuring activities are underway. The annualized staking reward offered by Figment is 5.6% on average.

Further, instead of depositing the Ether in the staking pool owned by Celsius, it opted to reap Figment’s staking pool rewards. Tom Wan, the analyst at 21Shares, a digital asset investment product firm, confirmed Arkham’s claim, and said that the interesting part is that they decided to stake with Figment instead of their own staking pool.”