Celsius moves to unstake hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ETH

Quick Take

  • Celsius is trying to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ether amid its ongoing bankruptcy and restructuring process.
  • The funds are currently held as staked ether tokens on Lido Finance.
  • Lido Finance enabled withdrawals as part of an upgrade this week. 

Celsius has begun withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ether from Lido Finance. 

The developments come just hours after the bankrupt firm moved nearly $800 million worth of staked ether (stETH) tokens, and following Lido Finance's upgrade that allowed for such transactions. Once withdrawn, Celsius will receive the underlying ETH in exchange for the stETH tokens. 

Blockchain data indicates that Celsius has initiated withdrawal requests for 240,000 stETH worth roughly $437.7 million as of the time of writing.

Celsius still holds an additional 188,000 stETH tokens, worth about $342 million, that can be redeemed.

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As The Block's Vishal Chawla wrote earlier Tuesday, Celsius dealt with liquidity problems last year in connection with its ether staking operations. The withdrawn ether may be used as part of the platforms' restructuring and creditor repayment efforts.

Celsius owes creditors $4.7 billion.

In March, Celsius moved to convert wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) tokens into bitcoin. 


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