Crypto firm Celsius Network files for Bankruptcy; meanwhile Central Bank says tech can't save us from risk

Any surprises here?

In the same week that Bank of England, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability (John Cunliffe) said “Financial assets with no intrinsic value … are only worth what the next buyer will pay. They are therefore inherently volatile, very vulnerable to sentiment and prone to collapse,” we learn of yet another crypto firm filing for bankruptcy and the protection it affords.. 

Put another way: technology can’t remove all financial risks. 

Celsius Network, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency lenders, filed for bankruptcy, following a wave of digital asset companies that have frozen assets and entered restructuring amid a sharp sell-off in cryptocurrencies thus far in 2022. 

Its business model was simple old-fashioned lending. Celsius took in customer deposits and lent out the funds at higher interest rates, making a profit from the difference. There is nothing innovative here, just as there is nothing innovative about Buy-Now-Pay-Later (laybuy on an app). In both cases it is simply technology putting a new spin on an old play. 

To lure investors, Celsius offered high-interest rates and claimed its risks were small. Yet according to a Financial Times investigation, Celsius took on increased financial risks in recent months as demand for loans from institutional investors waned. This is classic behaviour by financial firms when they finally see the writing on the wall. 

What do we learn from the filing? 

• Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing comes roughly a month after it froze customer assets, trapping billions of dollars across more than a million accounts.
• it listed between $1bn - $10bn in assets, the same amount in liabilities
•  100,000 creditors
• filing will be an “opportunity to stabilise its business” and undergo a restructuring “that maximises value for all stakeholders”.
• had it not restricted withdrawals there would have been a run on its deposits operating on a first come, first served basis, leaving others with illiquid and less certain claims. 

A rather ironic outcome of the Celsius failure is that Alvarez & Marsal, a consultancy best known for unwinding failed investment bank Lehman Brothers after the 2008 financial crisis, is Celsius’s restructuring adviser.

Cunliffe is also reported saying "Cryptocurrencies may not be “integrated enough” into the rest of the financial system to be an “immediate systemic risk,” but he suspects the boundaries between the crypto world and the traditional financial system will “increasingly become blurred.”.

Now Celsius is not alone. We have also seen the implosion of a highly leveraged crypto hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital, which filed for bankruptcy in July 2022 too. Crypto lender Voyager Digital also filed for bankruptcy recently while other companies narrowly averted a similar fate by taking in emergency cash at fire sale prices.  BlockFi agreed to a rescue deal with crypto trading exchange FTX on July 1 that valued the lender at up to $240mn, far below an earlier valuation of $4bn.

What about investors?

I don't mean the customers but the backers. Celsius’s failure is poised to leave venture capital backers nursing large losses. In late 2021, it raised $750mn from WestCap and Quebec-based pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec at a valuation of more than $3bn. Ouch - especially for current and future retirees of the pension fund. Did they sign up their money for such illiquid investments?

Further Reading:

• https://www.ft.com/content/8d6dee7d-2cc9-4663-a0a2-e469686baca5
• ​https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/13/tech-cant-remove-all-financial-risks-crypto-regulation-needed-boe-.html