Celsius, the crypto lender that has been battling quite a few issues recently, is apparently not wasting any time when it comes to shifting funds. The lender transferred its staking tokens in ETH (stETH) from Lido, a platform for liquid staking, the moment it allowed withdrawals.
Celsius Is Not Willing To Take Any Risks
On May 15th, wallets of Celsius included a transaction that showed Ether staked in Lido (stETH) amounting to 428,015 being moved to the Ethereum wallet staked in Lido. This enormous collection amounted to a whopping $781Mn when the transfer took place. As such, some believe that this was the first step to a withdrawal. Data from the chain indicates that Celsius tested out the withdrawal system by pulling out 0.1 stETH sometime following that transfer.
Simon Dixon, a creditor of Celsius and one of the pioneers of Bitcoin, said that the lender might be preparing for a direct stake excluding Lido as a middleman. He added that it can also be used for collateral for loans needed to fund the restructuring plans of the crypto lender.
Arkham Intelligence, an intelligence firm for Blockchain, pointed out that in the previous week, there was a transfer of 40,928 ETH from Celsius to “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1”, a smart contract. Etherscan reports that on May 12th, these funds were then transferred to a deposit contract on the Beacon Chain of Ethereum.
On May 15th Lido began to allow withdrawals after upgrading its protocol to v2. The platform receives a staking commission of 10%. The platform, at present, controls 29% of existing staked Ether. That amounts to 6.27Mn ETH, which has a value of approximately $11.3Bn. However, the queue of withdrawals currently holds 54,046 ETH, excluding the stash of Celsius.
