OKX Seizes 2 Million USDT Linked To CELT Exploit, Plans Restitution

The Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX recently started investigations into the platform following the users’ allegations of market manipulation of the Celestial (CELT) token. In reality, Celestial’s developers announced the development of a new blockchain game on February 26. And then pumped the token’s price by running an unlawful social media campaign for the Game-Fi scheme, associating it with OKX. As a result of these activities, the CELT’s price doubled its value before losing more than 50% in just two hours.

The CELT token currently hovers at $0.0019 from its previous high of $0.0049 on Monday.

On February 28, the exchange revealed the seizure of over 714,381 USDT from 5 accounts linked to market manipulation. The platform claimed that the remaining funds were already transferred from the platform, and Celestial will repay 1.3 million USDT, which has left the exchange in trouble since the “malicious market manipulation” activities were committed. 

Celestial Affirmed OKX Is Not Behind The CELT Promotion

Celestial, a metaverse-based Social-Fi and Game-Fi platform, apologized to OKX for the negative impact and affirmed that the exchange was neutral to this incident. It reads;

We deeply apologize for the negative impact. 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.

In response to the allegations of OKX partaking in market manipulation, the firm admitted that the exchange invested $100,000 in the GameFi project in September 2021. And since the platform purchased CELT assets via its subsidiary OKX Ventures, it received CELT tokens “without any transactions.” The firm further noted it didn’t find any of its staff members involved in immoral activity. 

The exchange further clarified that OKX Ventures has no business relations with Celestial. It added;

As a neutral platform, except for OKB and OKT, OKX has no special relationship with any project parties. All publicity under the banner of OKX is false publicity.

OKX Allocates 1 Million USDT For Reimbursement

The exchange said it will deduct 2,014,381 USDT from the five accounts that carried out the manipulation, while the reimbursement plan mentions airdropping 3,014,381 USDT. This is because the exchange allocated 1 million USDT to cover the losses of affected users.

The report said that users who purchased the CELT tokens from February 25 between 12:00 AM Hong Kong time to February 28 and suffered losses would be eligible for the airdrops. OKX said the airdrop details will be published within the next two days, attributing the delay to the complexity of the process. 

Additionally, OKX founder Star Xu said on Twitter that his team could consider delisting the CELT token, and the platform will review listing standards to prevent the listing of such bad tokens.