Connect with us

Published

on

Alex Mashinsky, founder and chief executive officer of Celcius Network Ltd., during a panel session at the Blockchain Week Summit in Paris, France, April 13, 2022.

Benjamin Girette | Bloomberg | Getty Images

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky on Thursday, alleging that Mashinsky defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors out of billions of dollars at the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.

Mashinsky publicly assured his customers that investing with Celsius was both safer and more lucrative than leaving their investments in a traditional bank. At one point, deposits at the crypto exchange were valued at $20 billion, according to the complaint. But Mashinsky’s statements were false, James alleges, and became part of his efforts to hide deep losses on risky crypto-lending investments.

“As the former CEO of Celsius, Alex Mashinsky promised to lead investors to financial freedom but led them down a path of financial ruin,” James said in a statement.

The attorney general’s office is seeking to fine Mashinsky and levy monetary damages, and bar him from leading a company or working in the securities industry in New York.

The action is civil, not criminal, and was brought under the Martin Act, New York state’s wide-ranging securities law. The Martin Act gives prosecutors sweeping search and subpoena powers to investigate potential wrongdoing.

Celsius offered sky-high yields that lured investors in and swelled the exchange’s coffers. Celsius, like similarly bankrupt Voyager Digital, was able to pay out yields as high as 17% by lending customer assets to crypto hedge funds, including now-collapsed Three Arrows Capital, known as 3AC, and Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research.

The crash of cryptocurrencies terra and luna in 2022 forced 3AC into bankruptcy and deepened an ongoing “crypto winter.” Celsius was exposed to the fall of terra and luna both through loans to 3AC and through $935 million of direct investment in “highly speculative” terra bets, all funded by investor funds, the complaint said.

Mashinsky claimed that Celsius had “very small losses” and that the exchange had “basically reduced or eliminated any exposure” to borrowers with investments in terra or luna.

Those statements were false, James’ complaint alleges, and were part of a wider campaign to prevent user outflows that could have precipitated a run on the bank similar to what happened at FTX, another bankrupted exchange.

But Mashinsky made “materially false and misleading” statements designed to hide the actual extent of Celsius’ exposure, claiming that the crypto exchange had “billions in liquidity” just days before Celsius filed for bankruptcy on July 13, 2022, the complaint alleges.

Celsius investors were left bereft and so despondent that some considered suicide, CNBC previously reported.

“Mashinsky never disclosed that Celsius had close to a billion-dollar deficit,” the complaint alleges. Celsius entered bankruptcy proceedings with only $1.75 billion in crypto assets, a far cry from the $4.7 billion it owed users.

Mashinsky resigned from his position as CEO in September. At the time, he apologized for the “increasing distraction” that his leadership had caused.

“Alex Mashinsky is no longer employed by Celsius and is not involved in the management of the company,” a spokesperson for Celsius told CNBC.

Mashinsky did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky resigns, and FTX buys Voyager's assets for $1.4 billion: CNBC Crypto World

Continue Reading

Technology

Super Micro’s 44% plunge this week wipes out stock’s gains for the year

Published

on

By

Super Micro's 44% plunge this week wipes out stock's gains for the year

Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7. 

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Super Micro investors continued to rush the exits on Friday, pushing the stock down another 9% and bringing this week’s selloff to 44%, after the data center company lost its second auditor in less than two years.

The company’s shares fell as low as $26.23, wiping out all of the gains for 2024. Shares had peaked at $118.81 in March, at which point they were up more than fourfold for the year. Earlier that month, S&P Dow Jones added the stock to the S&P 500, and Wall Street was rallying around the company’s growth, driven by sales of servers packed with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors.

Super Micro’s spectacular collapse since March has wiped out roughly $55 billion in market cap and left the company at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq. On Wednesday, as the stock was in the midst of its second-worst day ever, Super Micro said it will provide a “business update” regarding its latest quarter on Tuesday, which is Election Day in the U.S.

The company’s recent challenges date back to August, when Super Micro said it would not file its annual report on time with the SEC. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company and wrote in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was in the early stages of a probe into the company.

Super Micro disclosed on Wednesday that Ernst & Young had resigned as its accounting firm just 17 months after taking over from Deloitte & Touche. The auditor said it was “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.”

A Super Micro spokesperson told CNBC that the company “disagrees with E&Y’s decision to resign, and we are working diligently to select new auditors.” Super Micro does not expect matters raised by Ernst & Young to “result in any restatements of its quarterly financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, or for prior fiscal years,” the representative said.

Analysts at Argus Research on Thursday downgraded the stock in the intermediate term to a hold, citing the Hindenburg note, reports of the Justice Department investigation and the departure of Super Micro’s accounting firm, which the analysts called a “serious matter.” Argus’ fears go beyond accounting irregularities, with the firm suggesting that the company may be doing business with problematic entities.

“The DoJ’s concerns, in our view, may be mainly about related-party transactions and about SMCI products ending up in the hands of sanctioned Russian companies,” the analysts wrote.

In September, the month after announcing its filing delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq indicating that its late status meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline would be mid-November.

Though Super Micro hasn’t filed financials with the SEC since May, the company said in an August earnings presentation that revenue more than doubled for a third straight quarter. Analysts expect that, for the fiscal first quarter ended September, revenue jumped more than 200% to $6.45 billion, according to LSEG. That’s up from $2.1 billion a year earlier and $1.9 billion in the same fiscal quarter of 2023.

WATCH: I don’t know if Super Micro is guilty or innocent, says Jim Cramer

I don't know if Super Micro is guilty or innocent, says Jim Cramer

Continue Reading

Technology

Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

Published

on

By

Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

Peopl walk outside Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Park campus before Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9, 2024.

Nic Coury | AFP | Getty Images

Apple will buy Pixelmator, the creator of image editing apps for Apple’s iPhone and Mac platforms, Pixelmator announced Friday in a blog post.

Pixelmator, a Lithuanian company, was founded in 2007, and in recent years has been best known for Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro, which compete with Adobe Photoshop. It also makes Photomator, a photo editing app.

Apple has highlighted Pixelmator apps over the years in its keynote product launches. In 2018, Apple named Pixelmator Pro its Mac App of the year, citing the company’s enthusiastic embrace of Apple’s machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities, such as removing distracting objects from photos or making automated color adjustments.

We’ve been inspired by Apple since day one, crafting our products with the same razor-sharp focus on design, ease of use, and performance,” Pixelmator said in its blog post.

Apple does not acquire as many large companies as its Silicon Valley rivals. It prefers to make smaller acquisitions of companies with products or people that it can use to create Apple features. Neither Pixelmator nor Apple provided a price for the transaction.

Pixelmator said in its blog post that there “will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time.”

Earlier this week, Apple released the first version of Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that includes photo editing abilities such as Clean Up, which can remove people or objects from photos using AI.

Apple has acquired other popular apps that received accolades at the company’s product launches and awards ceremonies.

In 2020, Apple bought Dark Sky, a weather app that eventually became integrated into Apple’s default weather app. In 2017, it bought Workflow, an automation and macro app that eventually became Shortcuts, the iPhone’s scripting app, as well as the groundwork for a more capable Siri assistant.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Continue Reading

Technology

Amazon shares jump 7%, approach record after earnings beat

Published

on

By

Amazon shares jump 7%, approach record after earnings beat

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco on June 8, 2022.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon shares jumped 7% on Friday and neared an all-time high after the company reported better-than-expected earnings, driven by growth in its cloud computing and advertising businesses.

The stock is up about 32% for the year and touched $200.50 on Friday. Its highest close was $200, a mark the stock hit twice in July.

Revenue increased 11% in the quarter to $158.9 billion, topping the $157.2 billion estimate of analysts surveyed by LSEG. Earnings of $1.43 topped the average analyst estimate of $1.14.

Sales in the Amazon Web Services cloud business increased 19% to $27.4 billion, coming in just shy of analysts’ estimates, according to StreetAccount. That was an acceleration from 12% a year ago, but trailed growth at rivals Microsoft and Google, where cloud revenue increased 33% and 35%, respectively. Microsoft’s Azure number includes other cloud services.

Amazon’s capital expenditures surged 81% year over year to $22.62 billion, as the company continues to invest in data centers and equipment such as Nvidia processors to power artificial intelligence products. Amazon has launched several AI products in its cloud and e-commerce businesses, and it is also expected to announce a new version of its Alexa voice assistant powered by generative AI.

“Amazon has integrated AI into what is the most diverse tech footprint of any mega cap, with multi-billion revenue streams in e-commerce, advertising, subscriptions, online video, and cloud,” analysts at Roth MKM wrote in a note after the earnings report. They have a buy rating on the stock.

Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, said on the earnings call that the majority of the company’s 2024 capex spending is to support the growing need for technology infrastructure.

CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to spend about $75 billion on capex in 2024 and that he suspects the company will spend more next year.

“The increased bumps here are really driven by generative AI,” Jassy said on the call. “It is a really unusually large, maybe once-in-a-lifetime type of opportunity,” he said, noting that shareholders “will feel good about this long term that we’re aggressively pursuing it.”

Advertising was another bright spot. Sales in the unit expanded 19% to $14.3 billion during the quarter, meeting expectations and outpacing growth in Amazon’s core retail business.

Amazon’s ad growth was about in line with Meta, which saw 18.7% expansion, and faster than growth at Google, which reported a 15% increase in ad revenue. Snap‘s sales also jumped 15% from a year earlier.

Amazon forecast revenue in the current quarter to be between $181.5 billion and $188.5 billion, which would represent growth of 7% to 11% year over year. The midpoint of that range, $185 billion, fell short of the average analyst estimate of $186.2 billion, according to LSEG.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Upside expected for Amazon as fulfillment efficiency increases margins, says Cowen's Blackledge

Continue Reading

Trending