‘Holy Moly’: Crypto investor loses $40 million after Celsius collapse

More than $4.5 billion is owed to roughly 1.7 million Celsius Network customers, according to bankruptcy filing

Crypto investors saw their holdings wiped out following the collapse of Celsius Network (Getty Images/ iStock)

A crypto investor lost more than $40 million following the collapse of the cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, according to a new search tool.

Data scraped from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing revealed the balances, transactions and names of customers who lost out when the popular crypto lender ceased operating earlier this year.

The company, which was valued at $3.25 billion less than a year ago when the crypto market was at its peak, was forced to halt customer withdrawals in June after a major downturn proved catastrophic for the industry.

More than $4.5 billion is owed to roughly 1.7 million Celsius customers according to the bankruptcy filing, as well as more than 100,000 creditors.

The top 10 losers, according to the Celsius Net Worth tracking took, all lost more than $12 million.

“Holy moly,” wrote one Twitter user in response to the leaderboard of the searchable database.

Another investor described it as a “perfectly horrendous illustration” of the risks of sharing personal data with cryptocurrency platforms.

The tool features more than 600,000 Celsius Network customers who suffered substantial losses, though the site claims it will continue to add more records to its database.

Celsius Network is facing criticism for publicly providing a list of all of its users, with some within the space claiming that it goes against the built-in anonymity of cryptocurrency.

Court documents, however, reveal that Celsius submitted a request to prevent the release of personally identifiable information of its customers.

“The Debtors’ customers are particularly concerned with the security and privacy of their personally identifiable information because such information could potentially result in a customer becoming the target of identity theft, blackmail, harassment, stalking, and doxing (which is a form of cyber bullying),” the documents state.

The US trustee appointed to the bankruptcy filing ruled that Celsius must submit to “the general rule that bankruptcy proceedings should be open, public and transparent”.