Quebec Pension Fund loses almost entirety of its Celsius investment in less than ten months

In line 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 nearly 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 development 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 whole belongings and $850 million in cumulative curiosity paid to depositors.

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Nevertheless, as an unregulated and centralized entity, a depositors’ belongings will not be protected within the occasion of losses, neither is the agency subjected to any restrictions on using leverage. Throughout the onset of this yr’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. Consequently, it suspended withdrawals on the accounts of practically 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% up to now six months. The entity is presently evaluating its authorized choices in opposition to Celsius, though it has not shared any particulars. In line with court docket filings, Celsius is scheduled to expire of cash by October.