Celsius Network's premise was far riskier than sales pitch purported - WSJ

Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky built the cryptocurrency lender on the basis that the firm offered customers better returns than banks but had lower risk. However, investor documents showed that the business was a far risker than traditional banks, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.The company issued many large loans backed with little collateral, meaning it had little to protect it from a downturn, and made investments that would be difficult to unwind if customers sought to withdraw their money, the WSJ said, citing investor documents from 2021 that it had reviewed.As of last summer, Celsius had $19B of assets for ~$1B of equity, before it raised new funds, according to the 2021 documents. By comparison, the median assets-to-equity ratio for all North American banks in the S&P 1500 Composite index was ~9-to-1, about half of Celsius's ratio, according to FactSet Data.That 19-to-1 ratio is seen as even riskier given that some of its assets were investments in the volatile crypto sector, Eric Budish, an economist at the University of Chicago's business school told the WSJ.Last week, the Journal reported that Celsius Network had hired restructuring consultants for a potential bankruptcy filing more than a week after it halted withdrawals due to "extreme market conditions" and its CEL digital token (CEL-USD) plunged over 50% in 24 hours.