Celsius Network, the crypto platform that touted itself as safer than a bank, won court approval to end its bankruptcy case and release most of its remaining cryptocurrency back to hundreds of thousands of customers whose funds have been trapped since last year, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The plan approved in a New York bankruptcy court Thursday also creates a new company built around Celsius’s crypto mining and staking activities, wrapping up a first-of-its-kind bankruptcy process that saw intense involvement from individual customers who fought to influence the outcome. Customers are expected to get back only a fraction of the cryptocurrency they deposited with Celsius before it froze user accounts last year with a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet, one of the biggest crypto collapses ever. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn issued an opinion approving the plan proposed by Celsius and striking down the last remaining challenges to the terms of the reorganization plan. With the ruling, nearly all the major U.S. crypto firms that filed bankruptcy due to the market meltdown in 2022 have now concluded the court process and repaid what they could to their customers. The chapter 11 case of crypto exchange FTX is continuing.
