By
Benjamin Njiri
April 23rd, 2024
OKX has decided to compensate all the impacted users by air-dropping more than 3 million USDT by putting its own 1 million USDT in addition to the seized amount.
On Tuesday, February 28, crypto exchange OKX seized more than $2 million worth of Tether’s USDT stablecoins allegedly linked to five crypto accounts involved with “malicious market manipulation” of the Celestial (CELT) token.
Furthermore, the crypto exchange has also panned a $3 million reinstitution for all the affected users. Over the last weekend, Celestial developers announced the creation of a new blockchain game. Soon after, the Celestial developers also launched a social media campaign promoting the new game using OKX’s branding.
As a result of these activities, the CELT token nearly doubled in price just within two days. However, its price has dropped by more than 50% in the last 24 hours. It is currently trading at a price of $0.001976 with a market cap of $ 5.8 million.
But OKX has lashed out at Celestial stating that the use of its branding was unauthorized. They have further responded to the customer’s allegations of insider trading in this matter. Crypto exchange OKX explained that its own subsidiary OKX Ventures has invested $100,000 into the Celestial GameFi project back in September 2021.
But the exchange clarified that the CELT tokens that it received have been deposited into OKX Venture’s accounts “without any transactions”. Besides, an additional investigation found no evidence of insider trading involving OKX’s staff.
OKX Freezes USDT Stablecoins
As of all the developments, crypto exchange OKX has seized a total of 2,014,381 USDT. Besides, the crypto exchange has also promised a combined resolution of 3,014,381 USDT. OKX will be air-dropping to all the affected users while putting its own 1 million USDT.
All the users who purchased the CELT tokens between 12 am Hong Kong time on Feb. 25 and 12 am Hong Kong time on Feb. 28, and suffered losses will be eligible for the airdrop. OKX said that they would be publishing the details of the airdrop within the next 24 hours.
As OKX has launched an investigation into the event, Celestial has apologized for the “negative impact”. It noted:
“We didn’t use any relationship with OKX for the promotion. All the fake promotion was manipulated by other KOLs. We will fully cooperate with OKX exchange in their investigation and accept any decisions they make regarding the matter.”
Furthermore, Celestial has also stated that it would announce a large-scale buyback plan to “minimize user losses”.
OKX founder Star XU has also assured users that the exchange will review its “listing standards to prevent similar shit tokens” from being listed. There’s also a possibility that OKX might consider delisting the CELT tokens from the platform.