Celsius, which allowed people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies like its native token, also called Celsius, gained attention for offering as much as 18% interest on crypto—an absurdly large return for any asset. The company first paused withdrawals for its 1.7 million users on June 12 but assured people they could still “accrue rewards” during the pause.
But whatever “rewards” were accrued in the past month is imaginary money at this point, as Celsius customers will likely have a hard time seeing any of their regular money coming back, let alone the supposed “interest” earned on that crypto. Celsius, for its part, is still trying to put on a happy face about all of this even through bankruptcy.
These Chapter 11 cases provide the Company with the best opportunity to stabilize the business, consummate a comprehensive restructuring transaction that maximizes value for all stakeholders, and emerge from Chapter 11 positioned for success in the cryptocurrency industry,” Celsius said in an email to users overnight.
We apologize that communication with our teams and community has been very limited over the past few weeks, and we look forward to being able to offer greater transparency with everyone through our reorganization, which encourages dialogue with all stakeholders,” Celsius continued.
The Celsius token has lost 79% of its value in the past six months, though desperate users have spent the past month trying a “short squeeze” by buying up as much Celsius crypto as they can in the hopes of inflating the price. That effort has been little more than doubling down on failure, essentially handing more money to the people who started the problem in the first place.