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<p class="is-style-lead">A group of crypto investors has accused Wintermute Trading Ltd., a leading cryptocurrency market maker, of colluding with bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Digital and its former chief executive Alex Mashinsky to deceive them.</p> 
<p>According to a Bloomberg report, a group of Celsius investors who initially filed a lawsuit against former CEO Alex Mashinsky and several of the company’s top executives in July 2022 has <a href="https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rbAbr54FHdm4/v0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amended</a> the lawsuit to include Wintermute.</p> 
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   <p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wintermute Trading Ltd., one of the biggest cryptocurrency market makers, was accused in a proposed class-action lawsuit of helping former Celsius Network Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Alex Mashinsky dupe investors in his now-bankrupt crypto lending firm. BBG…</p>— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) <a href="https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1672445666478678017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">June 24, 2023</a>
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<p>The investors claim the London-based liquidity provider engaged in “wash trading” and other improper activities to <a href="https://crypto.news/celsius-used-558m-in-customer-deposits-to-purchase-cel/">inflate</a> the value of Celsius’s native token, CEL, and its loan products.</p> 
<p>Wash trading occurs when traders repeatedly buy and sell the same asset to create artificial trading volume and price movements. Per the lawsuit, Wintermute collaborated with Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius, to use <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/wash-trading-centralised-crypto-exchanges-need-transparency-and-accountability" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wash trading</a> to boost the demand and price of CEL in March 2021. The lawsuit also accuses Wintermute of assisting Mashinsky in his attempt to prop up CEL in May 2022 after the collapse of Terra and Luna tokens.</p> 
<p>Celsius was one of the largest crypto lending platforms in the industry, with over one million users and $17 billion in assets under management. However, the company filed for bankruptcy in June 2022 following a $2 trillion market crash that wiped out many crypto firms and exposed investors to huge losses.</p> 
<p> You might also like: <a href="https://crypto.news/what-happened-to-celsius-network-a-year-in-review/"> What happened to Celsius Network: a year in review </a> </p> 
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="strong-wintermute-denies-accusations-strong"><strong>Wintermute denies accusations</strong></h2> 
<p>Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-23/celsius-investors-claim-crypto-market-maker-wintermute-aided-wash-trading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that while Wintermute has “strongly” denied engaging in improper trading of any sort, Alex Mashinsky’s legal representatives have refused to comment on the new accusations brought against their client.</p> 
<p>Celsius froze all accounts on June 13, 2022, and Mashinsky has been under investigation by the New York attorney general for allegedly making false and misleading statements about his company’s financial health and security, leading investors to lose billions of dollars in crypto assets.</p> 
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<p>Following a public auction, Fahrenheit’s crypto consortium <a href="https://crypto.news/fahrenheit-consortium-acquires-bankrupt-celsius-network/">acquired</a> Celsius’s assets, including mining equipment, staked cryptocurrencies, an institutional loan portfolio, and other alternative investments.</p> 
<p>On its part, Wintermute, which reported $1.05 billion in revenue and $1.5 trillion in trading volume in 2021, has faced some challenges in recent times, including a $160 million <a href="https://crypto.news/wintermute-loses-160-million-in-latest-crypto-hack/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">h</a><a href="https://crypto.news/wintermute-loses-160-million-in-latest-crypto-hack/">a</a><a href="https://crypto.news/wintermute-loses-160-million-in-latest-crypto-hack/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ck</a> in September 2022 and a $55 million exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried’s failed FTX crypto exchange.</p> 
<p> Read more: <a href="https://crypto.news/coffeezilla-rips-celsius-network-scandal-wide-open/"> Coffeezilla rips Celsius Network scandal wide open </a> </p>

Investors accuse Wintermute of facilitating Celsius wash trading

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