Troubled cryptocurrency lender Celsius appears to be running out of time to move its ethereum-collateralized tokens from liquidity-collateralized platform Lido, which has just enabled withdrawals.
On May 15, a transaction of 428,015 stETH (Lido mortgaged Ethereum) to Lido mortgaged Ethereum wallet was found on the Celsius wallet. The huge sum, worth $781 million at the time of the transfer, is seen by some as a preparation for withdrawal.
On-chain data indicates that Celsius performed a test withdrawal of 0.1 stETH a few hours later. According to Bitcoin pioneer and Celsius creditor Simon Dixon, Celsius could “be lined up directly for staking without Lido.” It could also be loan collateral for Celsius' restructuring plan, he added.
Blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence highlighted that Celsius transferred 40,928 ETH to a smart contract dubbed “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1” last week. According to Etherscan, this was then transferred to the Ethereum beacon chain deposit contract on May 12.
Lido, which charges a 10% staking commission, enabled withdrawals on May 15 with a protocol upgrade to V2.
“Lido V2 introduces two main components, the most user-facing aspect being Ethereum withdrawals. This allows Ethereum stakers using Lido to unstake ETH directly through the protocol.”
Lido currently accounts for 29% of all staked Ether — 6.27 million ETH, worth approximately $11.3 billion. Meanwhile, there are currently 54,046 ETH in the withdrawal queue, not including the Celsius stash, according to on-chain analytics firm Nansen.
