Crypto currencies are currently in crisis. The values of Bitcoin and Co. are plummeting, and many users are now selling their mining equipment: Former crypto miners are flooding the market with cheap graphics cards and selling graphics cards for less than the recommended retail price. Now the crisis has also hit a major company that is officially supposed to manage billions of US dollars worth of Krpyto currencies. Many users are now worried about their assets. A crypto bank is missing a billion euros – Now thousands of Germans also fear for their hard-earned money

Company is missing a billion euros, users can no longer access their assets

What kind of company is this? Celsius Network was a kind of loan company: You could take out a loan, for example, and deposit cryptocurrencies as collateral.

However, Celsius is not a bank in the traditional sense. Instead, the New Jersey-based company relies on a so-called money services business (MSB): Celsius is a financial services provider without government supervision and acts more like an exchange office. In addition, users could deposit various digital currencies on their wallet and then receive percentage returns for them. Many trusted this company and took advantage of the opportunities. At least, that’s what the assets managed by Celsius Network show. As of May 2022, the company managed more than $12 billion.

What happened now? The company had to file for bankruptcy in July 2022. This is because the crypto trading and lending company has liabilities of $5.5 billion on its records, but assets of $4.31 billion.

It is missing the equivalent of over a billion euros. And this announcement plunges many users who trusted Celsius Network into great despair. Because many users had probably invested money here. Already some weeks before Celsius Network had blocked the accounts of users, so that nobody could withdraw his money. Currently, therefore, no one can get to their assets that are on the servers and accounts.

“My savings are gone, and I’ve managed to ruin my life.”

These are the reactions to bankruptcy: Both in the official subreddit of Celsius Network and in other threads, users are discussing the bankruptcy of the company.

Many individuals are expressing horror and shock, as no one is sure what will happen to their money now. One user writes on reddit, “My savings are gone and I managed to ruin my life.” Some are also upset about the company’s lack of transparency. For example, the company still sends out emails every week about bonus payments. Others complain that they only learned about the insolvency by chance (via reddit.com):

I can’t believe it [den Bankrott] found out from a damn Reddit thread and not from the company….

Other people have already lost lots of cryptocurrency as well. For example, one game had relied on so-called NFTs to incentivize people. The game had some similarities with the Pokémon franchise: The focus is on trading and breeding creatures. But now hackers captured cryptocurrency worth 550 million euros:

Hackers steal €550 million from NFT game – Pokémon-like game was unfortunately too successful