Celsius may be dealing with a liquidity crisis by unstaking $247 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin from Aave and sending it to FTX exchange.
Rumours among the crypto community are now spreading as the project has been moving massive amounts of WBTC, ETH, and other crypto assets in addition to pausing withdrawals for users.
Celsius users have criticized the platform for how they believe the project has mismanaged its funds following the collapse of the Anchor Protocol on the now named Terra Classic blockchain. Some think that if Celsius fails, it would sell its significant stack of staked ETH, which would cause it to depeg further from ETH.
Unusual token movements began at about 18:00 ET on the 12th from Celsius’s main DeFi wallet when it started removing WBTC from the Aave staking and lending platform, which Celsius used to earn interest on its deposits.
So far, 9,500 WBTC tokens worth about $247 million have been redeemed from Aave. Following a series of transactions, all of those tokens have been sent to the FTX exchange for an unknown reason. In addition to WBTC, it appears that 54,749 ETH worth about $74.5 million have been sent to FTX.
The Celsius team’s plans with the cryptos that have been moved are still not clear. There is a real possibility that it could sell the assets it sent to FTX, but another likely option is that it intends to stake the tokens they are sending to the exchange to earn yields.
Crypto investors are largely unimpressed with the new round of FUD coming from Celsius. The total crypto market cap has dropped 7.6% to $1.07 trillion over the past 24 hours. CEL, Celsius’s own token, has dropped more than 60% over the past 12 hours to $0.15.
