Chapman Shallcross had been burned before. Shallcross, father of current "Bachelorette" contestant Zach Shallcross, spent 34 years in the fire service, retiring from his job as a fire captain for the city of Orange after health issues caught up to him in 2020. The elder Shallcross considers himself a hands-on, blue-collar kind of guy, but when his reality-star son tipped him off to the world of cryptocurrencies, he quickly became fascinated by the technology's potential.
Now the elder Shallcross is one of nearly 1.7 million people around the globe whose assets are frozen in the Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lender that promised to be safer than a bank. Celsius froze more than $4 billion in assets on June 12. A month later it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it one of a handful of crypto firms to implode during the latest market crash.
Many in the cryptosphere are referring to the downfall of Celsius, Voyager and Three Arrows Capital as a "Lehman Brothers moment" for the industry, a nod to the investment bank that collapsed during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Before its crash, the subprime mortgage industry was worth $1.3 trillion. Today's crypto industry is worth much more — and is not nearly as regulated.
