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It seems that the troubled crypto lender Celsius is promptly transferring its Ethereum staking tokens from the liquid staking platform Lido, which has recently allowed withdrawals.
On May 15, a transaction was detected on Celsius wallets involving 428,015 stETH (Lido staked Ether) directed to the Lido staked Ethereum wallet. This substantial amount was valued at $781 million at the time of the transfer, leading some to speculate that it is intended for withdrawal.
On-chain data indicates that Celsius executed a test withdrawal of 0.1 stETH a few hours later.
Celsius stETH transfer. Source: Etherscan
Simon Dixon, a Bitcoin pioneer and Celsius creditor, suggested that Celsius might be “preparing for direct staking without Lido as an intermediary.” He also mentioned that this could serve as loan collateral for Celsius’s restructuring efforts.
428k #Celsius $stETH on the move – likely preparing for staking directly without #LIDO as an intermediary. That’s the loan collateral proposed for NewCo. An update is expected during the court hearing this week – 17th May – No court approval appears necessary for this it seems https://t.co/pwT4fR1Qjt https://t.co/4tdSsMegA8
— Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) May 15, 2023
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Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence noted that Celsius transferred 40,928 ETH last week to a smart contract named “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1.” This amount was subsequently moved to the Ethereum Beacon Chain deposit contract on May 12, as reported by Etherscan.
Related: Celsius creditors seek clarity on ‘suspicious’ FTX transactions
Lido, which charges a 10% staking fee, enabled withdrawals on May 15 following a protocol upgrade to V2.
“Lido V2 introduces two significant features, with the most visible being Ethereum withdrawals. This allows Ethereum stakers using Lido to directly unstake ETH through the protocol.”
Lido currently represents 29% of all staked Ether (ETH) — 6.27 million ETH valued at approximately $11.3 billion.
In the meantime, there are 54,046 ETH currently in the withdrawal queue, excluding the Celsius holdings, according to on-chain analytics firm Nansen.
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