According to a tweet from a trader named Gurgavin, controversial crypto lending firm Celsius has leaked the names of its customers. The post also includes an entire PDF file of the listed users and the amount of crypto each person on the platform has.
Before the events of the hack, Celsius filed for bankruptcy in mid-2022, causing its users to panic and move their cryptos to other platforms. As a court filing, the failed crypto platform surrendered the names of all involved members. This offered document was then leaked online, which caused panic and outrage on Twitter.
A Bankruptcy Filing Now Seen by the Public
Thousands of customers’ personal information was disclosed in the form of financial disclosure filed by Celsius on October 5, published online as part of the company’s bankruptcy filings.
While individual customers’ addresses have been removed, the document still contains over 14,500 pages of information about customers’ transactions on the platform, including the names of those customers, the total dollar value of those transactions, a breakdown of how those transactions were conducted, and the types of cryptocurrencies used.
The leak of sensitive material in court filings has caused widespread concern in the cryptography community.
Web3 firm Penumbra Labs founder Henry de Valence tweeted to his 9,000 followers on October 6 that this causes anonymous individuals to “dox all the on-chain activities” of Celsius users. The information can let anyone with capabilities cross-reference their transactions’ dates and quantities on the blockchain.
Additionally, the bankruptcy filings show that officials at Celsius withdrew approximately $17 million in cryptocurrency in the preceding weeks before the platform stopped processing withdrawals.
In May, Alex Mashinsky, former CEO and co-founder of Celsius withdrew around $10 million. Meanwhile, Daniel Leon, former CSO, and co-founder of Celsius, reportedly withdrew approximately $7 million. Nuke Goldstein, prevailing CTO, and co-founder, subsequently took around $550,000 across Celsius, USD Coin, and other assets on the platform.
A representative for Mashinsky indicated that the $44 million cryptocurrencies owned by Mashinsky’s family are still frozen and that the withdrawal was planned and utilized to pay income taxes resulting from the assets’ yield.
After the crypto market collapsed in June, Celsius was left with a $2.85 billion hole in its balance sheet. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July and halted withdrawals for its 1.7 million users.
Crypto Firms in Peril Since Mid 2022
2022 was an unforgiving year for crypto firms such as crypto mixer Tornado Cash and Compute North Holdings Inc. The continuous investigation of the feds and central banks on these companies accused several crypto companies of embezzlement and money laundering. These controversies caused massive FUDs in the market and volatile declines since the start of the year.
More so, crypto platforms like Coinbase and FTX laid off numerous employees to sustain the companies. However, it has been reported that Coinbase is now hiring new employees while FTX is still controlling the damages (not including their efforts to purchase assets from Celsius).
