It all started as a crash of a digital asset lender which promised more than it could deliver, but with each new day, the web gets bigger, sucking in more and more players and exposing new layers of rot, recklessness, and theft. Now, the bankrupt Celsius Network is countersuing an ex-manager who had sued it for operating a Ponzi scheme.
It all started in early July when Jason Stone, the founder of KeyFi, a DeFi aggregator that Celsius acquired, took to Twitter to reveal that he was the mysterious figure behind a famous Oxb1 address.
Hi all! I’m Jason Stone, and from August 2020 until April 2021, I led the group of talented individuals who managed the 0xb1 address.
— 0xb1 (@0x_b1) July 7, 2022
This address was created in August 2020 and rose to fame by giving away millions of dollars through airdrops to digital asset fans. With little information known about it, many assumed the address was controlled by a whale who was just a big philanthropist. Little did anyone know that the money that was being given belonged to investors in Celsius.
Stone sued Celsius for mismanagement of clients’ funds, claiming the lender lacked basic security and risk management systems. The lawsuit, filed in New York, further claimed that Celsius was using late-stage investors’ funds to repay earlier investors, thereby operating a Ponzi scheme.
“The recent revelation that Celsius does not have the assets on hand to meet its withdrawal obligations shows that Defendants were,…
