The Fahrenheit group has won the bid to manage the assets of the bankrupt Celsius Network.
Earlier today, the Celsius auction concluded and Fahrenheit was selected as the winning bid. The BRIC bid was selected as the backup bid. The Committee appreciates the efforts of Celsius and all bidders for their efforts, which generated significant value for Celsius users.
— Celsius Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (@CelsiusUcc) May 25, 2023
The consortium was formed by venture firms Arrington Capital and Proof Group, the mining company US Bitcoin Corp, and individual investors Stephen Kokinos (former head of Algorand) and Ravi Kas.
According to the application, the group will form a new public company with Celsius assets, fully owned by the platform’s creditors.
Fahrenheit will distribute among them liquid digital currencies totaling about $500 million. The created entity will take over the management of Celsius’s alternative investments, its credit portfolio, and its mining business.
“We are pleased that our competitive auction delivered a positive outcome for customers. The most notable result is hundreds of millions of dollars in savings from lower management fees and increased distribution of liquid cryptocurrency among Celsius customers,” said David Bars and Alan Carr, members of the Special Committee of the Board of Directors.
Fahrenheit’s annual fee will be $20 million under the five-year agreement. US Bitcoin will receive $15 million for managing the mining business.
The company will gain control over 121,800 ASIC miners. After the devices are connected to the network, the firm’s total hash rate will reach about 12.2 EH/s.
US Bitcoin also committed to building out infrastructure totaling 100 MW to house Celsius facilities.
Previously, the company took the opportunity to take over three mining data centers after the bankruptcy of Compute North in September 2022. US Bitcoin is in the process of merging with Canadian Hut 8 Mining.
The runner-up for the Celsius assets auction was the BRIC consortium, formed by Gemini, VanEck, Global X Digital and Plutus Lending.
As reported, according to a deleted tweet from Arrington Capital founder Michael Arrington, Coinbase was set to join Fahrenheit.