Celsius withdrawing nearly $800 million of Ether from Lido

Key Takeaways

• Bankrupt lender Celsius is trying to withdraw $779 million worth of ETH from Lido
• The ETH represents 7% of the total amount staked with Lido
• Celsius has $4.7 billion of debts with creditors, and sent the market into a tailspin last year after it got caught up in the Terra contagion
• Celsius also staked $75 million of ETH with staking provider Figment last week

Celsius is the temperature unit of choice for all bar three countries: Liberia, Burma and the United States. Celsius is also the name of a popular energy drink beginning to make rounds on social media. But utter the word “Celsius” around a cryptocurrency investor, and they will think of neither of these things. Rather, they’ll likely shudder and picture nothing but lost cash.

Celsius, of course, is the crypto lender which suspended withdrawals on June 12th, 2022. Getting caught up in the contagion that followed the spectacular death spiral of the Terra ecosystem a few weeks prior, it did not have the necessary funds on deck to honour the flood of withdrawal requests. 

It was forced to declare bankruptcy, a gruesome $4.7 billion owed to creditors. 

Now, it is trying to withdraw 428,000 ETH from Lido, equivalent to $779 million at current market prices. Transaction data on the blockchain can be seen here (withdrawn in increments of 1,000). 

Lido is a liquid staking platform, where ETH stakers have been able to lock up their ETH in return for stETH tokens, receiving a yield in the process. Until the Shanghai upgrade (also known as Shapella) went live in April, the any ETH staked, regardless of platform, was locked and could not be withdrawn. This changed once the upgrade went live, and last week, Lido opened up withdrawals.

Looking at the total amount of ETH staked on the network, it sits at 21.8 million, equivalent to 18.15 of the total circulating supply. 

Celsius’ requested withdrawal of 428,000 ETH constitutes 0.36% of the entire ETH supply (it also represents 2% of the total staked ETH). 

Looking at the amount of ETH staked with Lido specifically, Celsius’ withdrawal of 428,000 ETH represents nearly 7% of all the ETH staked with Lido. Lido has a 28% market share with regard to Ethereum staking. 

The ETH withdrawals will all be processed, but such is the size of the outflux that it may take time, especially if others move to…