Leaked documents of Celsius bidders in November show Binance, after the exchange, almost bought and dropped FTX

A well-known crypto blogger Tiffany Fong recently shared documents on the bids for Celsius crypto assets, which she claimed to have obtained in late December last year. 

In the document detailing the bid, it was revealed that at least five crypto firms placed bids to get Celsius network’s assets, with the inclusion of Galaxy Digital, Bank to the future, and Binance, who also, in November, made a move to buy the now collapsed exchange FTX but also dropped it after seeing the state of the exchange.

The blogger, Tiffany, who through following Celsius activities, shot to fame after she was able to secure several interviews with the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, after the collapse of the exchange published the document detailing these bids with a claim of having gotten them on December 20th, 2022.

The blogger said she’d tried to avoid posting the details of the bid to avoid causing any disruption to the ongoing bidding process at the time but was pushed to do so after she had seen a recent comment from a lawyer acting as a representative for Celsius and the premise of the lawyer’s statement had been that the bids were not compelling, which was not true, especially with the inclusion of Binance.

Asides from Binance, an online investment platform, Bank To The Future, d crypto trading platform, Cumberland DRW, digital asset investment manager Galaxy Digital and digital asset investment firm NovaWulf were also included on the list of bidders for the Network’s assets. 

According to Tiffany Fong, the bids from the firms were submitted back in November and had been abandoned by the company. 

With Binance proposing a bid of $15 million for the assets, $12 million of it for the estate of Celsius, and $3 million to be distributed to the migrated users of the Network on a pro-rata basis, and the summary of it was that Binance was ready to acquire and transfer all liquid and even specific illiquid crypto at a fair market price to Binance’s platform.

Galaxy Digital also proposed to acquire all illiquid and staked Ether assets the Network owned through thru sought to be designed stalking horse bidder, a name given to the initial bidder for the sale of distressed assets, for approximately $67 million. 

While Bank To The Future bid stated in their transaction structure that all the liquid collaterals and crypto assets would be returned to the company’s creditors pro rata if they were under the management of Bank To The Future and in a recent tweet, the firm’s CEO confirmed that the leaked documents concerning his bids were indeed correct.

However, Tiffany Fong noted that she was only aware of the five bids on the crypto assets owned by Celsius Network, with Novawulf’s offer having an uncanny resemblance to Celsius Network’s newly submitted proposal for the restructuring of their platform.

Most of the employees in the company were oblivious to the existence of the bid, as the lawyers representing Celsius had claimed there were no compelling bids, which could be attributed to their proposal to restructure the company. This could be an agenda to hold onto the reins and assets, so they could make a comeback while abandoning the other bids made by other companies.

Crypto blogger Tiffany Fong also said she needed to figure out how the entire case would eventually unfold. Still, she believed that the company’s creditors deserved more transparency than they had been getting, and they had a right to get the know-how on the bids deposited on the platform.

Binance, however, refused to comment following their policy to comment on speculations or rumors regarding ongoing deals, which was a contrast to the company’s reaction when they had announced their plans to buy out FTX but eventually dropped them after seeing the state FTX due to the disastrous way it had been ruined by its former CEO, SBF, which Tiffany had interviewed severally.

Conclusion

Earlier in the week, Celsius had dropped their proposal on how to pay creditors and restructure the company. 

The company first blocked withdrawals for their users in June 2022 and cited a lack of liquidity as their reason. The lack of it had supposedly been caused by extreme market conditions, which they attributed to the harsh crypto winter plaguing the crypto market. In July, Celsius Network decided to file for bankruptcy.