Tether Pays $300 Million to Settle Celsius Lawsuit Over $4.5 Billion in Bitcoin

The Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC), a partnership between investment firms GXD Labs and VanEck, announced that stablecoin giant Tether has paid $299.5 million to settle claims from the Celsius Network bankruptcy estate.

The payment resolves an adversary proceeding filed in August 2024 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, and the settlement represents a fraction of the value of funds that Celsius sought to recover from Tether.

Tether had publicly rebuked Celsius Network’s lawsuit seeking to recover approximately 39,542 Bitcoin—nearly $4.5 billion worth as of this writing—calling it a “baseless shakedown.” The suit, filed in August 2024, alleged that Tether improperly liquidated Bitcoin collateral ahead of Celsius’s July 2022 bankruptcy.

USDT stablecoin issuer Tether previously maintained that it acted lawfully under a 2022 agreement requiring crypto lender Celsius to post additional collateral when Bitcoin prices dropped. When Celsius failed to meet margin requirements, Tether said it liquidated the Bitcoin at Celsius’s direction to cover an $815 million debt.

Celsius countered that Tether failed to provide the contractually required 10-hour window to deposit additional collateral before liquidating the Bitcoin, destroying Celsius’s residual interest. A federal judge ruled in July that the lawsuit against Tether could continue.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino confirmed in an X post Tuesday that the company had settled “all issues” regarding the Celsius bankruptcy suit. Decrypt asked a company representative to confirm the $299.5 million figure, but did not immediately receive a response.

“We are pleased to have resolved Celsius’s adversary proceeding and related claims against Tether,” GXD Labs Managing Partner David Proman said in a statement. “In addition, we are pleased with the timeliness with which the settlement was achieved.”

BRIC was established in early 2023 specifically to maximize asset recovery in complex crypto bankruptcy cases. In January 2024, following Celsius’s emergence from bankruptcy protection, BRIC was appointed as complex asset recovery manager and litigation administrator by the debtors and unsecured creditors’ committee.

The consortium continues overseeing a portfolio of illiquid and litigation assets for the Celsius estate during its wind-down phase, working to benefit creditors.

Celsius Network co-founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky was sentenced in May to 12 years in prison for securities and commodities fraud charges, for misusing customers funds and manipulating the price of the lender’s CEL token. In June, he forfeited rights to any claims from the bankruptcy proceedings.