Celsius Debt Now Down to Around USD 120M After Aave, Compound Repayments

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...

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June 26, 2023 06:54 EDT

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Troubled crypto lender Celsius (CEL) appears to have no intention of being frozen out of the crypto world – and is continuing to take action to avoid possible insolvency as it has been hurriedly repaying the debts it owes.

Blockchain analytics data shows that Celsius has recently repaid some USD 78.1m worth of USD coin (USDC) to the lending protocol Aave (AAVE) in a series of transactions. Etherscan data showed that one of the payments made on July 11 to Aave was worth over USD 20m.

Celsius also repaid USD 35m worth of the USD-pegged DAI token to the Compound (COMP) protocol, Nansen data indicates.

Celsius began making a number of repayments at the start of this month, paying back debts it owed to the likes of Maker (MKR) – and has now paid back over USD 300m worth of its debt.

The firm still has around USD 120 million of debt to pay off on both Aave and Compound, per Zapper statistics, but has already freed up millions worth of tokens such as wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) in collateral. Last week, Celsius deposited USD 500m of WBTC on the FTX exchange shortly after reclaiming some USD 450m worth of the token in collateral.

The troubled crypto lender has made no indication of its strategy in paying off debts, but appears keen to avoid the fallout of forced liquidations. Many of the loan deals use crypto as collateral. Should the value of a coin fall below a certain amount, the position is automatically liquidated, a factor that could effectively leave Celsius unable to pay back its debts – and thus needing to file for bankruptcy.

However, for now, sources of funding to pay back the loans are unclear. Cryptonews.com has contacted Celsius with a request for comment.

On Reddit, one poster wrote that they hoped Celsius could “get back to normal” after a month of disruption, adding: “Obviously the trust is and should be gone, but at least investors will keep their money.”

Another quipped, sardonically:

“Wake me up when I can withdraw.”

Celsius suspended withdrawals in June, leaving scores of users unable to access their funds.

Also, as reported, the crypto lender has been – somewhat frantically – reorganizing its corporate structure, amid reports of staff layoffs and complicated management reshuffles.

At 07:34 UTC, CEL, ranked 112th by market capitalization on Coingecko, trades at USD 0.733 and is down 6% in a day and 32% in a week. And while it’s up 88% in a month, CEL is down also 88% in a year.
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