Earlier this month, the SDNY Bankruptcy Court answered one of the gating questions at the center of Celsius Network’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy regarding the ownership of the approximately $4.2 billion in crypto assets.

When a court-appointed trustee or liquidator is tasked with liquidating an entity, they need to gain possession of all of the entity’s assets. In crypto cases, this task can prove difficult when trying to identify and control all of the entity’s different digital assets and obtain cooperation from the entity’s former operators. Unfortunately, in the case of Three Arrows Capital (“3AC”), the two founders have refused to cooperate with recovery efforts and have absconded to unknown foreign countries.

This Regulatory Update provides a snapshot of the key legal developments in the BVI and the Cayman Islands over the last quarter – including amendments to BVI business company fees, the introduction of the BVI Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, and an update on the list of director names which is now publicly available in the BVI. It also contains a reminder of the January 2023 filing deadlines in the Cayman Islands, amendments to the Cayman LLC legislation and details of the highest possible rating given to the Cayman Islands by OECD for effectiveness of AEOI regime.

Judge Martin Glenn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a ruling last week in the Celsius Network bankruptcy case addressing whether customer deposits on a cryptocurrency exchange or platform are property of the debtor or property of the customer. The answer, not surprisingly, depends on the Terms of Use governing the account in question. In this case, the Court found that the terms clearly and unambiguously provided that ownership of cryptocurrency assets deposited into “Earn Accounts” resides with Celsius.

Cryptocurrency in Celsius’ Earn Accounts belongs to the bankruptcy estate, and not to the depositors who placed it there, according to a January 4 memorandum opinion from Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.

On January 4, 2023, Judge Glenn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a much-awaited decision in the Celsius Network LLC (along with its affiliated debtors, “Celsius” or the “Debtors”) chapter 11 cases relating to the ownership of crypto assets deposited by customers in the Celsius “Earn” rewards program accounts.

Introduction

Introduction for Insolvency & Restructuring Case Summaries 2021-2022 It gives us great pleasure to introduce our Insolvency & Restructuring Case Summaries 2021-2022.

This is the first year that we have published a collated version of the Case Summaries in addition to our regular insolvency InFocus updates. The Case Summaries have been produced in response to feedback that this would be a useful resource.

A crash in the cryptocurrency industry started this past spring, causing a significant number of cryptocurrency exchanges and related entities to seek bankruptcy protection, including the recent filing of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX. The volatility in the industry continues, with the subsequent filing of the cryptocurrency firm BlockFi and the crypto-mining company Core Scientific.

Crypto Basics

This article will discuss whether or not a winding-up petition or bankruptcy petition can be based upon a liquidated amount of crypto which is due and payable by one party to another (a crypto-debt).

An example of such a case could be where party A agrees to transfer 100 widgets to party B in exchange for five bitcoin. Assume party A delivers the widgets, and party B accepts receipt and raises no issue with the widgets, and does not dispute their liability to transfer five bitcoin to party B.