OKX has seized 2,014,381 Tethers, The cryptocurrency exchange announced on Feb. 28 that it had removed five accounts allegedly involved in “malicious market manipulation” of Celestial (CELT) tokens, and planned to pay $3 million to affected users.
Celestial developers announced the creation of a new blockchain game on February 26, OKX reported. Shortly after, Celestial developers allegedly launched a social media campaign using OKX's branding to promote the new game, which the company said was unauthorized. As part of these activities, the CELT token nearly doubled in value in two days before dropping more than 50% over the past 24 hours to $0.002129 at the time of publication.
In response to allegations of insider trading by customers, OKX explained that the exchange’s subsidiary OKX Ventures invested $100,000 in the Celestial GameFi project in September 2021. However, the exchange said the CELT tokens it received were deposited into OKX Ventures’ accounts “without any transaction,” and its investigation found “no evidence” of insider trading involving OKX employees.
Nonetheless, the exchange froze 714,381 USDT from five accounts suspected of market manipulation, and claimed that Celestial will refund $1.3 million related to such activity that has since left the exchange. As stated by OKX, the company will allocate $1 million, along with $2,014,381 obtained through seizure, to airdrop joint compensation of $3,014,381 to affected users. Users who purchase CELT tokens and suffer losses between 12:00 AM HKT on February 25th and 12:00 AM HKT on February 28th are eligible for the airdrop.
Due to the complexity of the airdrop, OKX stated that it will announce the details within the next 48 hours.
