Tether settles Celsius claims for $300M, raising stablecoin liability concerns

Stablecoin issuer Tether has agreed to pay $299.5 million to the Celsius Network bankruptcy estate, resolving claims tied to the crypto lender’s 2022 collapse and potentially opening a new chapter in the debate over stablecoin liability.

The Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC) — a joint venture between asset manager VanEck and GXD Labs, an affiliate of Atlas Grove Partners — announced the settlement on Tuesday. The recovery concludes a years-long dispute over Bitcoin (BTC) collateral transfers and liquidations that preceded Celsius’s high-profile bankruptcy in July 2022.

BRIC was formed in early 2023 to help maximize creditor recoveries from bankrupt digital-asset platforms. It was appointed asset recovery manager and litigation administrator by the Celsius Debtors and the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee in January 2024, after the company exited bankruptcy protection.

Source: Cointelegraph

Celsius had previously sued Tether, alleging that the stablecoin issuer improperly liquidated Bitcoin collateral that secured loans denominated in USDt (USDT). According to the complaint, Tether sold the collateral when Bitcoin’s price closely matched the value of Celsius’s debt, effectively wiping out Celsius’s position and contributing to its insolvency.

The newly announced $299.5 million settlement represents only a fraction of the roughly $4 billion in claims Celsius had sought in court, following an adversary proceeding filed in August 2024. In July 2025, the bankruptcy court approved the broader lawsuit against Tether to proceed, though it remains unclear how this latest recovery will affect those proceedings.

The settlement may signal growing legal exposure for stablecoin issuers when acting as counterparties in distressed crypto markets — a development that could reshape how regulators and courts view the responsibilities of entities like Tether in future insolvencies. 

Until now, issuers such as Tether have largely maintained that their role is purely transactional, facilitating issuance and redemption of tokens rather than bearing liability for how those tokens are used across exchanges, lenders or decentralized finance platforms.

Related: BlockFi bankruptcy administrator and DOJ agree to dismiss $35M lawsuit

Emerging from one of crypto’s darkest chapters

Celsius Network’s bankruptcy was part of a cascading series of crypto failures in 2022 that plunged the industry into a prolonged bear market and ultimately set the stage for FTX’s collapse later that year.

The fallout has been especially severe for former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who agreed in June not to claim any assets from the company’s bankruptcy estate and was later sentenced to 12 years in prison on two felony counts. As Cointelegraph reported, Mashinsky reported to prison in September.

Celsius was far from alone. Major crypto lenders BlockFi and Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022, followed by Genesis Global Capital the following year.

According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, customers withdrew nearly $13 billion from crypto-asset platforms between May and November 2022, as confidence evaporated across the sector.

The run on crypto lenders and exchanges in 2022. Source: Chicago Fed

“High-yield products were a key magnet for customers at some platforms,” the Chicago Fed noted, citing interest rates exceeding 17% in some cases — a level that drew investors in during the bull market but proved unsustainable once prices collapsed.

Related: Mashinsky’s 12-year sentence sets tone of enforcement in Trump era