Celsius takes out $417 million in staked ether from Aave

Quick Take

Celsius has pulled 400,000 staked ether out of Aave’s lending protocol.
It also repaid $63.5 million in the USDC stablecoin to Aave across three transactions.

On Tuesday, Celsius Network reclaimed a large portion of its collateral deposits that were locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

At around 7:50 a.m. ET, Celsius withdrew 400,000 stETH ($417 million) from Aave, a lending protocol where it had earlier parked the funds. The assets currently sit in the same wallet address that was used to transact with Aave.

This is according to on-chain data gathered from wallets that are widely believed to be owned by the lending company. In this case, the wallet in question is marked by Ethereum block explorer Etherscan as "Celsius Network: Wallet 11." It tracks 24 addresses that are attributed to the company.

Facing a financial fallout caused by a sharp drop in crypto markets, Celsius has been winding down its DeFi positions amid reports that it is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing.

In addition to taking out stETH from Aave, Celsius repaid a loan of $63.5 million in USDC to Aave across three transactions. This reduced Celsius' Aave debt to roughly $8.4 million.

The latest move follows the firm's recent withdrawal of 6,083 wrapped bitcoin from Aave on Monday. Furthermore, last week it pulled $440 million in wrapped bitcoin from MakerDAO.

Currently, Celsius' largest DeFi position consists of a collateral deposit of 10,000 wrapped bitcoin ($200 million) on Compound, according to on-chain data.