Former employees and internal documents suggest a reckless pursuit of high returns put the company in a poor position to ride out this year’s market turbulenceWhen Daniel Leon, one of the founders of Celsius Network, posted a Twitter video addressed to Warren Buffett in January 2021, he was in high spirits. The price of bitcoin was rocketing and Celsius, the crypto lender he had founded in 2017 with Alex Mashinsky, was riding the boom.
“Warren, Warren, Warren,” Leon began with a wry smile, mocking the American investor’s scepticism about bitcoin and butchering one of Buffett’s best known aphorisms on long-term investing: “My friends and I are planting a tree of transparent and decentralised cryptocurrencies so that future generations can enjoy the shade of prosperity and financial liberation.”
