In keeping with native information outlet LaPresse on Wednesday, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), an institutional investor chartered with managing retirement belongings in Canada’s predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, wrote off virtually the whole lot of its CA$200 million ($154.7 million) funding in troubled cryptocurrency lender Celsius Community.
The transfer got here simply ten months after the CDPQ and progress fairness agency WestCap made a joint funding of $400 million into Celsius at a valuation of $3 billion. At the moment, Celsius boasted over 1,000 workers, $25 billion in complete belongings and $850 million in cumulative curiosity paid to depositors.
Nevertheless, as an unregulated and centralized entity, a depositors’ belongings are usually not protected within the occasion of losses, neither is the agency subjected to any restrictions on using leverage. Through the onset of this 12 months’s crypto winter, the sudden and violent crash of Bitcoin (BTC) and different digital belongings left a $2.85 billion hole in Celsius’ internet belongings. In consequence, it suspended withdrawals on the accounts of almost 1.7 million prospects in June.
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It seems that the loss on Celsius represents solely a negligible fraction of the CDPQ’s portfolio. By June 30, the CDPQ managed a mixed CA$391.6 billion in total assets (or about $303.4 billion), reducing by 7.9% prior to now six months. The entity is at the moment evaluating its authorized choices in opposition to Celsius, though it has not shared any particulars. In keeping with court docket filings, Celsius is scheduled to expire of cash by October.
