A leaked audio recording by one of Celsius’ 500,000 customers Tiffany Fong reveals that the crypto lender wants to issue an IOU cryptocurrency to customers that signed up for some of its accounts. Fong said she received the audio from a self-identified employee who stayed anonymous during communications.
Guillermo Bodnar, the Chief Technology Officer, in the audio said the plan is in the early stages. Nuke Goldstein, Celsius co-founder, outlined a compensation plan for customers who deposited assets in the company’s “Earn” account, for which they had been promised yields as high as 17%. He said Celsius will release wrapped tokens which will serve as an IOU for customers. Goldstein outlined that if customers wait to redeem their tokens, there is a better chance that the gap between what the company has and what it owes will be smaller.
But this is a risky wager on an increase in value for a nascent token from Celsius that has just been through bankruptcy. Goldstein believes the value will go up because Celsius has revenue coming from its mining business, staked ETH, and other coins that may become liquid. The company also wants to allow customers to redeem the tokens. The executive pointed out that the tokens can be redeemed on Celsius for a value likely less than what they are owed or on crypto platforms like Uniswap, allowing the market to determine the tokens’ value.
This isn’t the only plan that Celsius has. The company is also building a transaction management system designed to track blockchain assets. It would include assets, the price at which they were purchased, and how much they were worth when they sold. It should be noted that Celsius never had sophisticated software to properly manage and track its assets.
