Celsius is asking the court for permission to return crypto to the value of around $50 million belonging to custody accounts.
Most holders of crypto on the stricken Celsius platform stored their assets there in order to earn interest. However, a much smaller number of users put their crypto into Celsius’ custody accounts.
According to an today on Bloomberg, these users may have their crypto returned relatively soon, as the company has asked the judge presiding over the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case to agree to release around $50 million of the total $200 million in digital assets that are stored in custody.
The rest of the assets that are stored in the custody part of the platform are still trapped, given that Celsius is disputing their ownership by claiming that users transferred their crypto from interest-bearing accounts over to custody accounts shortly before bankruptcy was declared.
Celsius is claiming that it is the owner of these coins, which the company asserted to Judge Martin Glenn in a hearing on Thursday. This is also the case for the great majority of users who stored their crypto on the platform in order to earn interest.
Simon Dixon, CEO of BnktotheFuture and a Celsius depositor, tweeted that the judge was not yet assured of the safety or whereabouts of the coins that Celsius said that it owns:
Dixon also tweeted his thoughts on the oft-stated slogan by Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, that “Banks are not your friends”.
