Creditors of the bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius have alleged that Wintermute, a crypto market maker, assisted Celsius executives in manipulating the prices of CEL through wash trading. The plaintiffs who sued Celsius CEO and other executives in July 2022 have included Wintermute as a defendant in their amended lawsuit filed in the United States District Court of New Jersey.
According to the court filing, Wintermute facilitated the “fraudulently manipulated” trading volumes on the Celsius platform by engaging in wash trading activities with Celsius executives from March 2021 until Celsius froze withdrawals in June 2022. The alleged scheme was uncovered through publicly available internal conversations among Celsius executives.
The consortium that obtained Celsius Network’s institutional loan portfolio, staked cryptocurrencies, mining unit, and other alternative investments almost a year after Celsius initially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, had no measures put in place to prevent improper market making.
Cointelegraph reached out to Wintermute for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication.