Crypto lending platform Celsius has reportedly employed attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis LLP to advise on its restructuring choices — the identical agency that assisted Voyager Digital with its chapter submitting final week.
In response to a report from the Wall Road Journal on Sunday, the corporate has hired attorneys to advise on choices, together with a chapter submitting rather than the beforehand employed legislation agency Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Kirkland & Ellis LLP describes itself as a world legislation agency that serves purchasers in non-public fairness, M&A, and different company transactions, having been based in 1909.
The legislation agency has additionally been tapped as basic chapter counsel for Voyager Digital in its chapter proceedings, which it filed within the Southern District Court docket of New York on July 5, days after pausing buying and selling, withdrawals and deposits on liquidity points.
Regardless of ongoing issues that the crypto lender might comply with an analogous path, Celsius has continued to wind down its money owed to decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols, having simply paid off 20 million in USD Coin (USDC) to Aave.
The most recent mortgage compensation was picked up by blockchain analytics agency Peckshield on Sunday, sharing a screenshot of the 20 million USDC switch from a Celsius pockets to Aave Protocol v2.
#PeckShieldAlert Celsius (0x8ace…130ee8) has repaid 20m $USDC on Aave pic.twitter.com/U7h1Lvyy5x
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 11, 2022
DeFi monitoring platform Zapper shows that Celsius nonetheless owes roughly $130 million in USDC and $82,500 in Ren (REN) to Aave, together with $85.2 million in Dai (DAI) to the Compound protocol, with a complete debt of $215 million.
Final week, the lending platform paid off its remaining $41.2 million debt to Maker protocol on Thursday, liberating up greater than $500 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) collateral.
Associated: Tether liquidates Celsius place with ‘no losses’ to stablecoin issuer
Paying down debt has been seen as a optimistic for Celsius’ depositors, who haven’t been in a position to entry their crypto funds since withdrawals halted on June 13 and concern a lack of their funds if the corporate have been to go bankrupt.
Final week, crypto lawyer Joni Pirovich advised Cointelegraph that Celsius’ compensation of its mortgage place would in the end help its clients, as it might release capital which might be used to satisfy buyer withdrawal requests.
Pirovich added that even when Celsius recordsdata for chapter, repaying its mortgage place and withdrawing collateral may enhance the scenario of its clients.