Crypto Lending News and Insights

Investors have filed a lawsuit against Gemini and its Founders over allegations of committing fraud in the interest-bearing program, Gemini Earn.

Midas Investments announced its plans to shut down its platform after incurring significant losses that have led to a large asset deficit for the firm.

Nexo has sent an open letter to Vauld’s creditors after the latter called off its potential acquisition deal with Nexo.

Vauld has pulled out of potential acquisition by Nexo following Nexo's lack of response to due diligence requests.

Celsius provided an update on its ongoing business processes and disclosed that it has received multiple bids for its assets ahead of its auction process.

BlockFi filed a motion with the Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey to enable withdrawals for Wallet Account holders.

Celsius' legal consultancy firms have filed motions with the Court to receive $52.8M from the bankrupt crypto lender. 

Amber Group has raised $300 million in its Series-C fundraising round led by Fenbushi Capital. The money generated will be used to protect and assist clients affected by the FTX collapse. ‍

Summary: Maple has released Maple 2.0, a fundamental upgrade of its smart contract architecture. This version comes with new features that will help improve the quality of services to Maple’s users and partners.

Tether announced its plans to remove secured loans in 2023 in response to widespread concern about the stablecoin issuer’s growing number of loans.

Nexo has won regulatory approval in Poland. It is now registered with the Ministry of Finance of Poland as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP). This gives the company the right to provide services and harness Poland’s potential as a growing crypto hub.

Martin Glenn ordered Celsius to return clients' assets worth $50M at Wednesday's court hearing.

Nexus Mutual is facing a $3 million loss due to Orthogonal Trading’s loan default. This accounts for about 1.5% to 2.6% of the company’s assets. Nexus has initiated actions to recover available funds in the M11 pool.

Celsius has been granted an extension of its exclusivity period by the court. The company promises to utilize this period to develop plans for a stand-alone business and the benefits of its customers and stakeholders.

Maple Finance has cut ties with Orthogonal trading due to its $36 million default loan. The lending firm expressed disappointment in Orthogonal, citing its misrepresentation of financial position as a violation of agreements.

Nexo announced its plans to gradually exit the US market after hitting a “dead end” in its discussions with the US regulators.

Genesis and its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), owe $900M to users of Gemini Earn. Gemini has formed a creditors’ committee to re-acquire these funds.

BlockFi launches lawsuit against SBF shell company in a bid to enforce their previous agreement.

BlockFi emerged as the latest victim of FTX’s collapse as the crypto lender and eight of its associate firms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Aave has temporarily frozen lending markets for 17 Ethereum-based tokens. According to the approved proposal, these are low-liquidity asset pools, and their freezing will reduce the risk profile for highly volatile assets.‍

Matrixport targets $100M in funding to attain a $1.5B valuation after securing $50M from its undisclosed investors.

Binance ready another bid for Voyager's assets while clarifying its status as not a Chinese company.

Holdnaut is under investigation by the Singapore police force due to alleged misinformation and false representation.

BlockFi makes further platform moves after stopping customer withdrawals.

Barry Silbert, the CEO of Digital Currency Group, said the firm owes $575M to Genesis Global Capital, with these intercompany loans due in May 2023.

Genesis denied rumors of “imminently” submitting bankruptcy filings after failing to raise funds over the last week.

Iris Energy has unplugged many mining machines due to a loan default. The lender has demanded that the payments be made in full immediately, and the hosting arrangements with the facilities have been terminated.‍

Three investors filed a lawsuit in the London High Court against Nexo for blocking them from withdrawing their crypto assets.

Shoba Pillay, the external examiner in the Celsius bankruptcy case, reported that the lender's Custody program lacked proper “accounting and operational controls or technical infrastructure.”

The court has approved January 3 as the bar date for all Celsius customers to file their claims. Stretto will send out a notice to all customers through emails, physical mail and notifications on the Celsius app.

Bitcoin lender, Unchained Capital, has laid off 15% of its employees and restructured its management. This action is due to the prolonged bear market and not any form of exposure to FTX.

Midas Investments has publicly showcased its Proof of Liquidity, revealing addresses for $91 million AUM out of its $145 million. The platform promised to continue its efforts to update users and promote transparency.

Nexo’s latest tweets revealed that the platform does not have any exposure to Genesis after the latter suspended its loan services.

Genesis becomes the latest firm affected by FTX’s collapse as its lending entity halts loan originations and redemptions due to liquidity issues.

Oxygen has revealed it has significant exposure to FTX, stating that the exchange was the custodian for about 95% of the tokens in its ecosystem. The DeFi lender is now looking for ways to protect its ecosystem.

Salt has halted withdrawals and deposits due to the impact of FTX’s collapse. The firm states it will not be continuing operations until it is sure about the extent of impact and the way forward.

FTX’s collapse has prompted Voyager to reopen the bidding process for its buyout. The company is in active discussion with other interested companies and is making efforts to ensure maximum value is returned to its customers.

Matrixport’s Earn products were affected by the insolvency of FTX, resulting in losses to 79 clients.

BlockFi's leadership page has been taken down a few hours after the crypto lender began suspending withdrawals.

BlockFi has announced that it will limit platform activity, including clients’ withdrawals. This follows the FTX liquidity crunch and a series of reassuring tweets by BlockFi.

Celsius filed motions requesting the Court to extend its exclusivity period for submitting a restructuring plan.

Ledn reported that it has not experienced any issues in its operations despite having Alameda Research as one of its counterparties

Nexo has boasted of its $0 exposure to FTX amid the exchange crisis. Its small loan to Alameda, fully collateralized by digital assets, was sold off a few days ago, making them immune to any losses.

Iris Energy is facing default claims from its lenders over a $103 million default loan of the Non-Recourse SPVs. The firm has disagreed with the alleged notice, stating that modifications need to be made for each term of the facility.

BlockFi has stated that all its products remain fully functional regardless of the Binance-FTX deal. The lending firm, which was supposed to be acquired by FTX, will now run as an independent entity until at least July 2023.

BlockFi plans to launch interest-bearing accounts for US-based accredited investors starting in late 2022.

Friktion has launched an institutional credit product to offer undercollateralized lending to crypto and traditional companies. With its new features, there will be risk-adjusted and transparent yields on the DeFi ecosystem.

Invictus Capital has defaulted in paying a $1 million TrueFi loan. The debt was uncollateralized due to Invictus’ good reputation at the time. However, with the collapse of the Terra project, the company has been unable to fulfill its financial obligations.

Federal judge Martin Glenn expanded the scope of the investigation into Celsius’ bankruptcy proceedings. Next, Pillay will consult with the Celsius Creditors Committee to decide who will lead the probe into Celsius.

Federal judge Martin Glenn disapproved Celsius’ plan to pay bonuses worth $3M to select employees.

Decentralized credit marketplace, Credix Finance, is partnering with digital lender, Clave, to bring debt capital markets on-chain with the launch of a $150M stablecoin credit pool. The credit facility will open in 2023.‍

Hodlnaut woes continue as they are accused of withholding important financial documents from the authorities.

Tiffany Fong’s latest set of Tweets alleged that Alex Mashinsky, Co-Founder and Ex-CEO of Celsius, falsely claimed to invest $18M in CEL's ICO.

The Court approved Celsius' plan for the auction of its assets and mandated the appointment of a customer privacy ombudsman.

Voyager Digital urged its creditors to support FTX US’ sale agreement to purchase the bankrupt lender’s assets.

Prime Trust has agreed to transfer $17M worth of crypto assets to Celsius.

JPMorgan Chase hired former Celsius executive Aaron Iovine as its head of crypto regulatory policy. Following his appointment, Iovine will now work with JPMorgan’s regulatory affairs group.

Voyager Digital could allow its customers to retrieve up to 72% of their frozen funds as part of a provisional deal with FTX US.

Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Ledn, expressed his opinions on the future of crypto lending and claimed that the lending industry is maturing.

Monthly fee statements from law firms revealed that Celsius owes them over $3M as litigation counsel expenses.

Voyager Digital’s Unsecured Creditors' Committee (UCC) objected to providing security to its executives from future action.

Celsius requested the Court to set the deadline for its clients to submit their proof-of-claim forms on December 13.

Crypto lender, Moon Mortgage, plans to launch a product that allows investors to use cryptocurrencies as collateral for financing real estate investments. This follows its successful $3.5M seed round for product expansion.

Celsius has filed its Schedules of Assets and Liabilities and Statements of Financial Affairs in line with the bankruptcy proceedings. This move has placed users at risk of fallouts and possible cyber threats.

DefiLlama’s 0xngmi has moved into NFT lending to tackle liquidity constraints. With the launch of LlamaLend, users can become liquidity providers for their NFT collections and enjoy other benefits.

TrueFi has issued its first notice of default on the BUSD loan to Blockwater Technologies. The firm owes TrueFi over $3.4 million and has only been able to pay $645,000.

Nexo will be integrating enterprise-grade NFT indexer Zash. Through this partnership, Nexo hopes to extract more liquidity from the crypto market and increase its offering.

Islamic nations are adopting crypto. However, are all aspects of crypto Halal?

So much has been going on with embattled crypto lender Celsius. Here are some updates detailing the activities of its Top Execs and what the future holds for the lending platform.

Crypto lender, Ledn, has initiated an acquisition process for Arxnovum Investments Inc., a regulated Canadian digital asset investment manager. The acquisition will enable Ledn to serve more accredited clients.

A new court record reveals that the top three executives of the now defunct crypto lending platform, Celsius, withdrew about $56.2 million before the company halted withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy.

S. Daniel Leon, Celsius’ Co-Founder, resigned from his position as Chief Strategy Officer via an internal memo.