Canadian pension manager Major has declared a loss of $150M on a crypto-lending platform Celsius Network. This is in anticipation of the imminent shuttering down of CeFi.
According to a report from the Financial Times, the fund is the second-largest in Canada and has signaled the write-off as being indicative of the funds’ expeditious decision to have exposure to crypto assets.
Canadian Fund’s “Disappointment”
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or CDPQ, is Canada’s second-largest pension fund in the country, according to the Times, managing over $300B in funds in Quebec. The fund’s stake in Celsius was written off “out of prudence,” according to the report, signaling that the fund has no expectation of Celsius Network achieving any semblance of a recovery.
The move comes less than a year after the fund described it’s investment into Celsius as being indicative of it’s “conviction” in blockchain technology, and serves as another unfortunate domino in the Celsius downfall. Chief executive of the fund, Charles Emond, said that the fund “went in too soon into a sector that was in transition, with a business that had to manage extremely quick growth.”
The fund performed better than benchmarks but it lost nearly 8% over the six-month period ending June. Emond added that “the first six months of the year were very challenging… Whether it is Celsius or any other investment, needless to say that when we write it off, we are disappointed with the outcome and not happy.”
Celsius token (CEL), has suffered a large slide, which is consistent with what the consensus on the future platform believes. Source: CEL-USD on TradingView.com | Source: CEL-USD on TradingView.com
State Of Celsius
Similar to Terra Luna’s dramatic and media-grabbing fall, Celsius is sure to make new crypto investors resentful. When it comes to the CDPQ, the Times has reported that Celsius’ crumbling is enough to leave the Canadian pension behemoth on the sidelines when it comes to short-term crypto investors, while remaining optimistic on the long-term perspective around blockchain technology.
Meanwhile, it’s gone from good to bad to ugly (and worse) for Celsius as the threads unravel. In recent days, it has come to light that Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky took over the firm’s trading strategy earlier in the year. The news comes as Celsius works through it’s bankruptcy case with a New York judge, who recently granted the firm an approval to sell off mined Bitcoin to assist in paying for operations.
Featured image taken from Pixabay. Charts taken from TradingView.com This content was not written by or associated with the mentioned parties. This article is not meant to provide financial advice.