The crypto lender, which is facing bankruptcy, has been transferring its large amount of staked Ethereum.
It seems that the troubled crypto lender, Celsius, is swiftly moving its Ethereum staking tokens away from the liquid staking platform Lido, which has recently allowed for withdrawals.
On May 15, a transaction was noticed on Celsius wallets, involving the transfer of 428,015 stETH (Lido staked Ether) to the Lido staked Ethereum wallet. This substantial amount was valued at $781 million during the transfer and is speculated to be in preparation for withdrawal.
Later on, on-chain data indicates that Celsius conducted a test withdrawal of 0.1 stETH a few hours afterwards.
Celsius stETH transfer. Source: Etherscan
Simon Dixon, a Bitcoin pioneer and creditor of Celsius, suggests that Celsius might be considering direct staking without involving Lido. He also speculates that the transferred stash could potentially serve as loan collateral for Celsius’ restructuring plans.
428k #Celsius $stETH on the move – likely lining up for staking directly without #LIDO in the middle. That’s the loan collateral proposed for NewCo. Should get an update during court hearing this week – 17th May – No court approval needed for this it seems https://t.co/pwT4fR1Qjt https://t.co/4tdSsMegA8
— Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) May 15, 2023
Last week, blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence discovered that Celsius transferred 40,928 ETH to a smart contract named “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1.” Subsequently, on May 12, the funds were further moved to the Ethereum Beacon Chain deposit contract, as reported by Etherscan.
Lido, a platform that charges a 10% staking commission, introduced withdrawals on May 15 after implementing an upgrade to V2 of its protocol.
“Lido V2 brings two significant features, with the most noticeable one being Ethereum withdrawals. This enables users who have staked their Ethereum with Lido to directly unstake and withdraw their ETH through the protocol.”
At present, Lido holds approximately 29% of the total staked Ether (ETH) supply, which amounts to about 6.27 million ETH valued at around $11.3 billion.
According to on-chain analytics firm Nansen, there are currently 54,046 ETH in the withdrawal queue, and this figure does not include the stash held by Celsius.
This information is for general knowledge only and should not be considered as advice for investing or making financial decisions
