Retail Customer Frustration

▪ Retail Customers are often unsophisticated investors and, depending on the exchange, dispersed all over the world. Many Retail Customers viewed the crypto exchange as a bank or a brokerage. However, unlike a bank/brokerage, there is NO insurance fund (e.g. FDIC/SIPC) available to quickly satisfy customers’ claims in the event of insolvency. As a result, Retail Customers have been forced to “wait in line” for their distribution (pending the resolution of the Chapter 11 process) and are extremely frustrated. As reflected in the image below, in the first month of the Celsius bankruptcy, over 250 letters were filed by pro se customers with the Court.