Celsius Network Team Was Allegedly ‘Not Shy’ About Manipulating the Price of CEL
Summary:
- The former director of financial crimes compliance at Celsius Network, Timothy Cradle, claims that the team behind the company was deliberately manipulating the price of CEL.
- The accusations echo those by Celsius’ former money manager, Jason Stone, who filed a lawsuit accusing the company of being a Ponzi scheme.
The financial issues facing Celsius Network might have started years before the company halted crypto withdrawals in mid-June and eventually filed for bankruptcy last week.
Celsius Used Customer Funds to Manipulate the Price of CEL.
According to Celsius’ former director of financial crimes compliance, Timothy Cradle, executives at the company were deliberating pumping the price of the CEL token.
Mr Cradle shared his insights into the inner workings of Celsius during a CNBC interview, where he also explained that the issue of pumping CEL came up during two different conversations for two different reasons. He added that the top management at Celsius was not ‘shy about it’ and were ‘absolutely trading the token to manipulate the price.’
His observations were also seconded by another former Celsius employee who pointed out that CEL was ideal for manipulation since it had low trade volumes. He said:
“It’s easy to manipulate the price of CEL due to the low trading volumes in CEL. I’m sure [Mashinsky] knows that…That’s just an example of what he will do to publicly manipulate the price for his own benefit.”
Both Celsius’ former employees’ statements are very similar to those in a recent lawsuit by the company’s former investment manager, Jason Ston, who claims it operated like a Ponzi scheme. Mr Stone claims that Celsius ‘cheated him out of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in pay.’
Celsius Lent Out User Funds to Hedge Funds Willing to Pay Higher Interest.
Internal documents from the now bankrupt Celsius also hint that customers were unaware of the risks involved when depositing their funds to earn the attractive 17% yield.
The documents further highlighted that Celsius would later lend out user funds to hedge funds willing to pay an even higher yield and invest in other high-risk crypto projects. Celsius would then split the profits with its customers.
At the time of writing, neither Celsius’ CEO nor the company’s lawyers have responded to the above allegations regarding its financial operations.
~ By John P Njui ~
