CELT Token Team Manipulated Market, Traders Lost Millions, OKX Says, Here's What Happened

Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu has spread the word that Chinese crypto giant OKX has made a statement about the recent massive price drop of the CELT token. The team of the exchange believes that it was manipulated and is preparing to reimburse traders who suffered financial losses due to this.

CELT is a native token of the Celestial project running on the OEC public blockchain, which was formerly called OKeXChain. This is a blockchain gaming platform that combines GameFi, SocialFi and NFTSwap. It was launched in late September 2021.

OKX issued an announcement saying that the CELT token project manipulated the market, and finally returned 1.3 million USDT after communication. OKX will deduct 2.01 million USDT from five suspicious project accounts, and donate 1 million USDT at the same https://t.co/pP7grKiVpL… https://t.co/XU0QZaVpRX pic.twitter.com/SG1HZ6jvaS

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) February 28, 2023

CELT price plunge caused by social media activity

According to the statement, large fluctuations in the CELT price occurred on Feb. 27, therefore, the OKX exchange team received numerous questions from traders. The team conducted an investigation and shared the results in a press release.

The document says that OKX and Celestial (CELT) are not linked by any strategic partnership; however, in September 2021, OKX Ventures did invest $100,000 in this Gamefi project. One million CELT tokens have been locked in an account that belongs to OKX Ventures to be released within one year, according to the initial plan.

Further, the press release stated that on Feb. 26, the Celestial project announced the rollout of a new DLT-based game, which was promoted by several KOLs (key opinion leaders) on several major social networks. The OKX team highlighted that they do not allow this sort of promotion, except for OKB and OKT tokens related to the OKX exchange.

This promotion apparently caused a great fluctuation of the CELT price. The founder of OKX Mingxing "Star" Xu noticed it and published a tweet with a screenshot that shows the token plunging over 50%.

Base on my understanding,OKX doesn’t know anything about Celt’s marketing plan. If there is evidence of any OKX employee got involved in Celt’s fraudulent promotion,please let us know. https://t.co/E2v3XdWPsw

— Star (@star_okx) February 28, 2023

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Here's what investigation shows

As a result of the investigation that was launched earlier today, five profit-making accounts were spotted that looked suspicious. The team took measures to freeze them right away.

As a result of talks between OKX and the Celestial team, the project was driven to return 1.3 million USDT. No connections between the project and any member of the OKX team were found during the investigation, the press release stated. However, they welcome anyone who thinks otherwise to provide confirmation of that.

OKX will use 2,014,381 USDT found in frozen accounts believed to be manipulating the market to make airdrops for users who suffered financial losses. OKX will add one million USDT tokens from its own wallet to that initiative. Thus, over three million USDT will be airdropped on those who lost money as a result of this market manipulation.