Celsius Scandal Unfolds in "FTX-Like" Fashion - Why YOU Should Be Paying Attention!
/The Next Crypto “Pyramid Scheme” Takes Center Stage In The News
As if it weren’t bad enough that Scam Bank-Run Fraud put a huge dent in the credibility of cryptocurrency startups by running a practical Ponzi scheme, we now have yet another significant story that has bubbled up from the abyss.
Celsius has been found to be guilty of very similar shady practices, as news hits the wires that the company used customer funds to pump up the price of their native token CEL. To add insult to injury, the CEO and other company executives cashed out millions selling their own CEL holdings while lying straight to our faces claiming they did not.
Using a tactic straight out of the FTX playbook, Celsius was artificially pumping the price of the token by improperly using customer funds. It was so bad that company employees even commented on how it appeared to be a Ponzi-like pyramid scheme.
They used several other tricks to pump the CEL price like making private token sales and then buying them right back in public markets, using timed purchases, and placing resting limit orders. None of these are legal or legitimate methods, and are shady practices at best.
Former CEO Alex Mashinsky sold over $68,000,000 in CEL tokens over a 5-year period while telling the bald-faced lie that he wasn’t selling at all. The co-founder of Celsius David Leon sold over $10,000 in CEL tokens, and the former chief technology officer Nuke (what a name) Goldstein unloaded $2,800,000 worth.
To throw salt into the wounds already made by the jack-legged executives, the company was using new customer deposits to fund the withdrawals by other customers. This was yet another tactic stolen out of the FTX crypto-scam playbook. They did this for three days leading up to the overall freeze of withdrawals, which they were forced to do in order to avoid a complete bank run.
These scoundrels had losses of over $800,000,000 in 2021 that they did not report. The money was lost from investing in Grayscale, KeyFi, Stakehound, and Equities First Holdings. The scary thing is, I was about 1” away from investing into the KeyFi project during that time, because I got to know the project developer.
The point of this story? You’ve really got to watch what you believe when it comes to these glowing new cutting-edge crypto and DeFi companies that bombard us every day with unrealistic promises of amassing life changing wealth in a short period of time. Crooks will crook, and the cryptocurrency sector is fertile ground for them to plant their poisonous seeds.
Remember the alleged immortal words of P.T. Barnum… “there’s a sucker born every minute”. The crypto con artists bank on this fact, and they are laying in wait to “tokenize” your gullibility.
Carlton Flowers
The CryptoPro
https://www.youtube.com/c/CryptoProCarlton