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Plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit have accused one of Celsius’s market makers of market manipulation, Bloomberg reported on June 23<\/a>,<\/p>\n Former Celsius investors said that Wintermute<\/a> engaged in wash trading to make it appear that Celsius had higher trading volumes than it did in reality.<\/p>\n The case text quoted by Bloomberg said:<\/p>\n \u201d \u2026 Wash trading activity corrupted [Celsius\u2019] CEL Token prices, as well as the reported trading volume, all in a strategic pattern to deceive investors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The plaintiffs also alleged that Wintermute helped Celsius CEO Alex Mashinksky support the value of Celsius’s cel token<\/a> following the collapse of Terra and Luna.<\/p>\n Plaintiffs said that they found details of Wintermute’s alleged wrongdoing through an unnamed report carried out by examiners prior to Celsius’ bankruptcy.<\/p>\n While the origins of the plaintiffs’ claims are unclear, market data indicates that on May 4, 2022 \u2014 days prior to TerraUSD’s depeg \u2014 Celsius’ CEL token was priced at $2.18. The price of CEL fell as low as $0.28 on June 13, 2022, the same day that Celsius halted withdraws. Its price then surged to $3.81 in August 2022 before falling once again.<\/p>\n The extent of Wintermute’s role as a market maker for Celsius is also unknown, although some reports suggest large transactions between the firms. Arkham Intelligence reported that<\/a> Celsius’ wallets transferred $20 million of ETH to Wintermute in May 2023. Reports from Dirty Bubble Media suggest that<\/a> Celsius transferred 2,000 WBTC to Wintermute just days before its June 2022 bankruptcy. CryptoSlate has not verified that data.<\/p>\n Wintermute denied all wrongdoing in a statement to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n Bloomberg said that the lawsuit is Kaplan v. Mashinsky<\/em>22-cv-04560, US District Court, District of New Jersey, otherwise known as Goines v. Celsius Network<\/em>,<\/p>\n Bloomberg said that the plaintiffs have added Wintermute as a defendant in the amended case, though the latest update does not appear to be publicly available.<\/p>\n The case is separate from Celsius’ ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Recent developments in its bankruptcy saw Fahrenheit win an auction<\/a> for Celsius’ assets, an event that marks the next step toward the company’s reopening and returning funds to creditors.<\/p>\n Celsius said it owed $5.5 billion to customers near the beginning of its bankruptcy case in July 2022. Of that amount, it owed $4.7 billion to users.<\/p>\n The post Celsius investors allege Wintermute took part in wash trading, price manipulation<\/a> appeared first on CryptoSlate<\/a>,<\/p>\nWintermute accused of wash trading<\/h2>\n
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Class action is unrelated to bankruptcy case<\/h2>\n