Crypto turmoil continues to deepen, with further maneuvers at Celsius (CEL) and a company recounting details of how it dodged the Three Arrows Captial (3AC) fallout – while the crypto exchange giant FTX appears set to bail out yet more ailing crypto players with a “few billion” dollars worth of reserve funds.
Celsius fighting heat wave
Celsius, the troubled crypto lender that has reportedly axed a quarter of its workforce in a bid to stave off insolvency, has recently reshuffled its board of directors – in an apparent bid to steady the ship.
Per filings listed with the UK’s Companies House public register of firms, Alan Carr and David Barse were made board members in late June.
The filings give a hint of possible chaos behind the scenes: one board member, John Dubel, was appointed to his role on June 20, only to leave the post eight days later. Another – Gilbert Nathan – was appointed to the board on June 17. He then officially left the board on June 29.
Carr is the CEO of Drivetrain, a company that specializes in corporate restructuring, litigation, and management of troubled investment portfolios.
Genesis ducks an arrow (or three)
The crypto exchange Genesis Trading has explained that it had been exposed to 3AC, but had managed to mitigate losses after the latter “failed to meet a margin call.”
Per Bloomberg, the Genesis CEO Michael Moro explained that his firm’s owner, the Digital Currency Group, had “assumed some” of Genesis’ “liabilities.” Moro added that Genesis was also “pursuing all strategies to recover any potential loss.”
The firm’s loans to the now-bankrupt Three Arrows had a weighted average margin requirement of more than 80%, Moro explained.
Several weeks ago, the CEO had admitted that Genesis had mitigated losses with a (then-unnamed) “large counterparty” that had failed to “meet a margin call.”
FTX fixes this?
The FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried was quoted by Reuters as stating that “he and his company” still have a “few billion” ready to bolster flagging crypto firms whose demise “could further destabilize the digital asset industry.”
However, Bankman-Fried was also quoted as stating that “the worst of the liquidity crunch has likely passed.”
He added:
“We’re starting to get a few more companies reaching out to us.”
Bankman-Fried repeated his assertion that “some smaller crypto exchanges may still fail,” but noted that “the industry has moved” beyond “other big shoes that have to drop.”
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