Celsius Bankruptcy Releases Customer Data

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Celsius

In July 2022, cryptocurrency lender Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to liquidity problems caused by the Terra ecosystem collapse, revealing a $1.2 billion deficit. Under Chapter 11, a list of creditors' names and addresses, known as the "Creditor Matrix," is required for transparency, which Celsius complied with, redacting personal information. However, US Trustee William Harrington objected to redaction, emphasizing the need for open and transparent bankruptcy proceedings. Celsius's creditor list includes commercial creditors and users owed funds. Despite Celsius's request for redaction, addresses for users are hidden. A leaked document exposed customer information, triggering backlash. A tool was developed to search for user names and losses, revealing the extent of losses and privacy breaches. The leak has sparked discussions about KYC practices and centralized finance risks. Some inaccuracies in the leaked data have been reported, raising doubts about the accuracy of creditor payout records.

This exchange or platform is based in United States, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States.

About Celsius

"Celsius slid into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2022, revealing a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet." "CeFi lender Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 13, following liquidity problems triggered by the Terra ecosystem implosion. It later emerged that the firm was engaged in high-risk trading strategies, resulting in heavy losses."

"Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules, a “Creditor Matrix,” or list of creditors’ names and addresses, is required for public record. The court uses this to send notices and claims data for an open and transparent bankruptcy process." "The firm appears to have complied with a federal court rule that allows personal information like home addresses to be redacted, however."

"In a court filing dated Sept. 28, Celsius requested to redact the personally identifiable information of its users."

"US Trustee William Harrington objected to the request, arguing that redacting names and other information would violate the principle that all bankruptcy proceedings should be “open and transparent.”"

“The movant [Celsius] must demonstrate extraordinary circumstances and a compelling need to obtain protection to justify any such request,” Harrington said. Allowing incomplete statements would be a “slippery slope,” he said, as it would create an unfavorable precedent for crypto and other industries.

"The creditor list is split into two types, commercial creditors and users that Celsius owes. Information on the former is in full, whereas addresses for Celsius users have been redacted."

"On Oct. 5, disgraced CeFi lender Celsius filed Schedules of Assets and Liabilities and Statements of Financial Affairs as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings."

"In respect of Celsius users, the document showed names, coin quantity, and coin value, among other details. However, addresses were redacted at the company’s request."

"The crypto space was rocked after bankrupt crypto lender Celsius revealed the names and transaction history of hundreds of thousands of its customers in a court filing. That data has now become the basis for an independent online tool that enables anyone to search for the names of Celsius users and view how much they lost. Celsius has faced significant backlash, with many highlighting the fact that its users’ on-chain activity can be doxed by matching dates and amounts to transaction data. It’s a vivid reminder of just how public blockchain transactions are."

"The 14,500-page long document contained information such as customer names, crypto wallet IDs, transaction types and amounts, which services the customer had used, and the types and quantities of tokens held."

"A new search tool released over the weekend appears to sift through a recently released database of Celsius customer data and pulls together a video game style leaderboard showing how much money they’ve lost since the firm filed for bankruptcy. The top three names reportedly lost $40.5 million, $38.2 million, and $26.4 million respectively. Celsius currently owes roughly $4.7 billion to users but simply doesn’t have the money to pay them."

"Celsius just doxxed all their users and oh by the way—- we found out their CEO withdrew $10 million right before bankruptcy."

"Celsius x Ledger leaks are great for anyone looking for easy $5 wrench attack targets

Export 14k pages of names from the Celsius, then match names with 250k names from the Ledger leak

You now have a full name, address, email, phone number, and financial info of a LOT of people"

"Angel investor Stephen Cole labeled a website providing searchable data on Celsius users’ losses “a perfectly horrendous illustration of the risks of KYC.”"

"Commenting on the Celsius “doxing,” the CEO of Luxor Mining, Nick Hansen, said the situation is “a perfect demonstration of why KYC only hurts honest consumers.”"

"This Celsius dox is one of the egregious privacy violations in crypto history. Many on this list may have their safety at risk. It’s more important than ever to maximize your digital security."

"The user data leak has already received widespread condemnation on social media. Nick Hansen, CEO and co-founder of Luxor, said on Twitter that: “This Celsius leak may go down as one of the greatest breaches of customer information ever.”"

"Its latest exposé goes to show the perils and downsides of centralized finance, Michael Pearl, COO at smart transaction development platform Kirobo, said.

“While DeFi offers transparency regarding the activities of anonymous wallets, it does not match a name and a face to that wallet (if one undertakes some basic precautions),” Pearl told Blockworks in an email."

“Typically, when you dox you don’t get rugged. And on the other hand, when you get rugged you don’t get doxxed,” one user stressed on Twitter. “Celsius tier 1 sh** storm.”

"However, @former68w chimed in to say, having searched himself, it appears the website is not accurate. He concluded that either the documents filed with the court were fraudulent or there was an error in the compilation of data on the website. Another explanation is that Celsius’ records are not up to date."

"Others have expressed similar inaccuracies, which casts doubt on the precision of the creditor payout process."

This exchange or platform is based in United States, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Celsius Bankruptcy Releases Customer Data

Date	Event	Description
October 6th, 2022 5:33:00 PM MDT	Coffeezilla Tweet	Coffeezilla commented on the Twitter doxxing.
October 7th, 2022 4:48:00 AM MDT	Blockworks Article	Blockworks published on the situation.
October 7th, 2022 7:30:29 AM MDT	Bitcoin.com Article	Bitcoin.com reports on the incident.
October 7th, 2022 7:52:00 AM MDT	Tweet Reaction	A tweet is posted with information on what was leaked.
October 10th, 2022 5:30:00 AM MDT	CryptoSlate Article Published	CryptoSlate reports on the data.
October 13th, 2022 7:00:00 AM MDT	Wired Article	Wired publishes an article on the Celsius data.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

No funds were lost.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.