Report Claims Ripple Labs Might Be Looking at Acquiring Celsius; Here’s What We Know

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Ripple Labs Inc. could be interested in potentially buying assets of the defunct cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, citing a company representative.

When asked if Ripple was interested in buying Celsius wholly, the spokesman responded that the company was “interested in learning about Celsius and its assets and whether any could be relevant to our business.”

Back in June, the lending platform, which was thought to be experiencing a severe liquidity issue, had suspended all customer withdrawals. Celsius then converted its consumers into creditors when it filed for bankruptcy last month, where it was revealed that the platform owes its clients somewhere around $4.7 billion.

Latest court filing to be represented

Ripple made the statement in response to Reuters’ questions over the court papers submitted last week, where lawyers for Ripple asked to be represented in the proceedings. The filing was accepted by the bankruptcy court earlier this week despite Ripple not appearing to be one of the significant creditors of Celsius, the paper notes. 

Another report by Bloomberg claims that Wall Street credit traders are offering locked-out users of troubled platforms an opportunity to exit at a major haircut. Users of Celsius, and even Voyager, can reportedly sell the rights to their coins for a 75% discount.

Vladimir Jelisavcic, founder of bankruptcy claims broker Cherokee Acquisition told the media outlet, “There’s no real visibility about what the value of their accounts will be or when distributions might be made and many creditors simply want cash now.”

Will Ripple associate with Celsius amid an existing legal battle?

Celsius Network, which had over $11 billion in assets under management as of June 13, is estimated to have around 300,000 users with account balances of at least $100 as of July.

Not to mention the lender was also hit by another calamity not too long back when a list of customer email addresses was stolen by a Customer.io employee. This increased the risk of phishing attacks by malicious third parties, building trouble for the platform amid existing “extreme market conditions.”  

Meanwhile, the San Francisco-based Ripple Labs has raised around $300 million over 14 rounds since its incorporation, with the privately-held company backed by 40 investors, according to Crunchbase. The company also has no major acquisition history but has made 25 investments, as per the platform, with the most recent investment in Supermojo in July.

According to July numbers cited by the report, Ripple’s total sales of its native crypto XRP, net of purchases, stood at $408.9 million in Q2, up from $273.27 million in Q1. Meanwhile, its native XRP asset clocked minor inflows of $200,000 in last week’s digital assets investment report.

This all happens when Ripple is part of an elongated legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allegations of an unregistered securities offering.