Tether pays $299m to settle Celsius bankruptcy lawsuit

Tether has reached a settlement in the Celsius bankruptcy lawsuit, with the stablecoin issuer paying $299.5 million to settle all issues related to the case.

Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium, a joint venture between GXD Labs and VanEck, disclosed the settlement in a press release on Oct. 14. Tether is the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin with over $180 billion in market capitalization.

Celsius settlement – how much has Tether paid?

Per the details, Tether (USDT) has agreed to pay $299.5 million as settlement to the Celsius Network bankruptcy estate.

The payment relates to adversary proceedings filed in August 2024 and to claims around collateral transfers and liquidations that hit Celsius in July 2022.

When was the lawsuit filed?

GXD Labs and VanEck managed the litigation against Tether via BRIC, the entity that launched in early 2023 and aims to maximize recovery for crypto-related bankruptcies such as Celsius.

The crypto lender filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy amid a brutal contagion across the digital-asset market on July 13, 2022, a month after it paused withdrawals and showed a more than $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet.

Celsius emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings with a restructuring plan in early 2024, a move that received a court nod in November 2023.

BRIC is the complex asset recovery manager and litigation administrator of the firm’s Debtors and Unsecured Creditors’ Committee appointed in January 2024. Celsius, through this entity, filed the lawsuit in August of that year seeking 39,342 bitcoin (BTC) from the stablecoin issuer.

A bankruptcy judge allowed the case to proceed in July 2025 after denying Tether’s argument that sought a dismissal.

Tether’s CEO confirms settlement

On Tuesday, Tether chief executive officer Paolo Ardoino confirmed the settlement with BRIC. He shared the development on X:

GXD Labs and VanEck filed the lawsuit in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Celsius Network’s collapse in 2022 came in the same year that saw crypto lenders BlockFi and Voyager Digital, as well as crypto exchange FTX, highlight the worst of the implosion across the market.