Crypto meltdown
Crypto investors plead for money return after lender files for bankruptcy: Report
Investors who lost money, in some cases their life savings, in the troubled crypto-lender Celsius are pleading for the return of their money, media reported.
After the firm's multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy, judges looking into the case have received hundreds of letters from investors who lost their money parked with firm.
Celsius and its CEO Alex Mashinsky had promoted the platform as a safe place for people to deposit their crypto currencies in exchange for high interest, while the firm lent out and invested those deposits, according to the AFP report.
As the value of highly volatile cryptocurrencies nosedived, the company's problems spiralled and it disallowed withdrawals.
The company owed $4.7 billion to its users, according to a court filing earlier this month.
"From that hard-working single mom in Texas struggling with past-due bills, to the teacher in India with all his hard-earned money deposited in Celsius -- I believe I can speak for most of us when I say I feel betrayed, ashamed, depressed, angry," wrote one client who signed their letter E.L, according to the AFP report.
The letters are being posted to a public online court docket by clients from around the world and give accounts of tragic results of users' money being frozen, said the APF report.
The report said the letters have been written by self-confessed novices to all-in evangelists and the impact varies from a few hundred dollars to seven-figure sums, it added.
A customer who had been associated with Celsius since 2019 said "Alex would talk about how Celsius is safer than banks."
The firm kept giving repeated assurances even days before it froze withdrawals on June 12.
Celsius has one of the best risk management teams in the world. Our security team and infrastructure is second to none," the firm wrote on June 7.
"We have made it through crypto downturns before (this is our fourth!). Celsius is prepared," the firm wrote.
A client, who placed on Celsius $ 525,000, he got from a government loan, is considering killing himself, while another person $50,000 in assets with Celsius said he sat on the floor with head in his hand when he read the mail about the meltdown, the report said.
Some other people like one 84-year-old woman, who only had her roughly $30,000 in crypto savings on Celsius for a month, have their hopes in the bankruptcy proceedings, it added.
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