Celsius Reorganizes Board of Directors Amid Liquidity Issues

Crypto lender Celsius Network has reorganized its board of directors as it works to stabilize its liquidity and operations amid the ongoing crypto bear market.

Finance executives David Barse and Alan Jeffrey Carr were appointed as directors on June 28 and June 29, respectively, according to a Wednesday filing. 

Barse is the founder and CEO of index company XOUT Capital and founder of private family office DMB Holdings. Carr is the CEO of Drivetrain, a fiduciary services firm that leads complex restructurings and litigations and manages portfolios in distressed investments.

The executives are now directors alongside Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and Shlomi Daniel Leon, Celsius’s co-founder and chief strategy officer.

Barse and Carr did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The Wednesday filing also revealed that Celsius Network terminated Gilbert Nathan, John Stephen Dubel and Laurence Anthony Tosi as directors at the end of last month.

Dubel’s termination follows his appointment just one week earlier, the filing indicates. Dubel is the founder of Dubel & Associates, a provider of restructuring services to underperforming companies. He was named the chief restructuring officer of SunEdison in 2016.

Tosi is the founder of growth equity firm WestCap. He was previously the chief financial officer of Airbnb and The Blackstone Group, as well as the chief operating officer and a managing partner at Merrill Lynch.

It appears that Nathan is a managing member of consulting and advisory firm Jackson Square Advisors. 

Celsius did not immediately return Blockworks’ request for comment. 

The director changes come after Celsius paused withdrawals and transfers on its platform on June 12. The platform’s native token, CEL, had sunk more than 60% — from $2 to $0.77 — throughout May, as markets reeled from the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST).

CEL reached a two-year low of $0.28 after it suspended withdrawals but has since rebounded almost 200% to $0.836 as of 1:00 pm ET.

 In a blog post on June 30, the firm said it was working to stabilize liquidity and operations.

“We continue to take important steps to preserve and protect assets and explore options available to us,” the company wrote in the post. “These options include pursuing strategic transactions as well as a restructuring of our liabilities, among other avenues.”

Celsius has also let go of 150 employees, news outlet Calcalist reported on Sunday. 

The company is not the only firm seeking outside assistance to improve its situation. 

Crypto lender Babel Finance was reportedly set to hire Houlihan Lokey — a US investment bank specializing in financial restructuring — a few weeks after suspending withdrawals amid liquidity issues.

Meanwhile, Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, following crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital’s move into Chapter 15 bankruptcy on Saturday.

---

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

• The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
• 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.