Long Line of Bidders ‘Expected’ for Crypto Lender Celsius’ Assets: Court Filing

The troubled crypto lender’s assets will soon be up for auction.

The timeline for the auction of Celsius’s assets has been revealed as per a filing from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The final bid deadline is October 17, and if necessary, an auction will be held on October 20, 2022.

The sale hearing, a hearing conducted by the bankruptcy court to approve the proposed transaction, will then be conducted via Zoom on October 28, 2022.

The filing indicates the court anticipates “a large number of expected participants” but does not reveal any of the prospective buyers.

Celsius, which at one point claimed to have over $20 billion of assets under management, first filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 2022, revealing a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet following months of speculation regarding its financial stability.

Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius, resigned in late September, calling his own presence “a distraction.”

No parties have as of yet announced their intention to bid on the assets.

FTX CEO eyes Celsius assets

One potential suitor could be Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive of crypto exchange FTX.

It was widely reported in late September that SBF was considering bidding on all or some of the bankrupt lender’s assets.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Bankman-Fried’s firm has scooped up the assets of a failed crypto firm. FTX.US, the American subsidiary of FTX, successfully bid for the assets of Voyager Digital in Late September.

The subsidiary paid $1.4 billion for the crypto asset manager, which slid into bankruptcy in July, beating out bids from Binance and Wave Financial.

Bankman-Fried also extended a $400 million credit line to another troubled crypto lender BlockFi back in August 2022.

Despite the billionaire’s historically aggressive approach to picking up distressed crypto assets, he still wants to take a relatively careful approach to bailouts in a conversation on Decrypt’s gm podcast, saying: “There is a limit to how much we want to be throwing good money after bad.”