Welcome to our Crypto Insider for April 21st, 2022 – FREE Edition
Today, we’re looking at Celsius – an innovative crypto finance platform with zero fees, fast transactions, and a high degree of transparency, where you can earn 7.1% APY from stablecoins, as opposed to a standard savings account with a measly .01%. Is this too good to be true?
Let’s see.
Table of Contents
Celsius Network
- Founded in: 2017
- CEO: Alex Mashinsky
- Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube.
- Coinmarket Cap: $2.24 CEL
Celsius Network was founded in 2017 as an innovative finance mobile & desktop platform in the cryptocurrency space that encourages financial freedom. It has many curated services that big banks simply don’t offer, like low-interest rates, zero fees, fast transactions, and a high degree of transparency.
In fact, I have personally gotten a 0% interest loan from Celsius – how many companies can give you that?
Co-founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky is one of the inventors of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and is no stranger to being an innovator. He’s founded seven startups and has over fifty patents.
The company has raised above $864M and over $750M in 2021 alone, giving Alex a large war chest to execute his vision. So far, he’s been quite successful, based on Celsius’ homepage that displays some big accomplishments:
The company has almost $21B in assets and more than 1.7M users across the globe. Not bad for a 3-year-old company.
So what exactly makes people flock to Celsius, and how can you take advantage of this company’s services?
We’ll go over two of Celsius’ most important features to give you a teaser as to why it might be a great app for you to use.
We will not discuss investing in the token itself. Only accredited US citizens are allowed to purchase $CEL legally.
The Celsius App
While Celsius doesn’t allow you to make interest from all cryptocurrencies, it does have dozens of options, including coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Matic, and Solana. It also allows you to earn interest from stablecoins such as TUSD and USDC, both of which currently get you a 7.1% APY from Celsius.
For the full list of supported cryptocurrencies and current rates, you can visit their earn page. The best part – there is no minimum amount you need to deposit (unless you want to take advantage of promo codes) and no minimum amount of time the cryptocurrency needs to stay with Celsius.
Compared to banks, the interest you can get from Celsius is much, much higher. The fact that you can earn 7.1% APY from stablecoins on Celsius can really help you compound wealth, as opposed to just keeping your money in a Wells Fargo savings account for a measly .01%.
You can calculate how much interest you would earn from their calculator (scroll down):
One of the best things about Celsius is that it is really frickin’ easy to use. Its intuitive flow and great dashboard help you maintain a full understanding of your Celsius account. When you first go to your account dashboard, Celsius makes it easy to see your current holdings, how much you’ve earned in rewards thus far, and how much you’ve saved on gas.
Rewards are paid weekly on Mondays, and the app does a pretty great job of telling you how much you earned:
In previous articles, we’ve written about defi and staking. While Celsius offers similar benefits, it’s important to note that Celsius is not decentralized, and you don’t stake your coins. Just keeping your cryptocurrency on the Celsius platform allows you to earn interest.
However, like with all technology, using Celsius does put you at risk of software bugs and vulnerabilities. In fact, Celsius lost more than $50 million in December 2021 from a hack. Fortunately, the company reimbursed its affected users, so nobody’s savings were harmed in the end.
Reimbursements in the defi space do happen, such as when Daniele Sesta’s Popsicle Finance was hacked for $25 million, but refunds are admittedly rare for defi. If you’re sceptical about participating in defi, Celsius is a great alternative to get similar benefits, but with a lot less risk, given the company’s track record.
Celsius Borrow
Celsius Borrow is exactly what it sounds like but is only available on the mobile app. This feature allows you to borrow $USD or Stablecoins from the company with your cryptocurrency (click here for supported assets) as collateral. This allows you to get liquid cash without selling your cryptocurrency for low-interest rates.
In fact, it’s through Celsius Borrow that I got the 0% interest rate. While there are certainly risks of borrowing money, it definitely has its benefits (such as being interest-free) if you want to hold onto your cryptocurrency assets.
Celsius allows you to borrow between a 25% and 50% Loan to Value (or LTV). The higher the LTV, the fewer assets you need to borrow against. For example, at a 25% LTV, you need to provide $400 of supported cryptocurrency to get a $100 loan. At 50% LTV, you need just $200.
While loans from Celsius aren’t as quick and pain-free as the loans you can get from defi platforms such as Abracadabra, they certainly beat out loans from banks by a mile.
The loan I was able to get only took 6 hours to process and be approved – and a few hours later, I had the money in my Celsius account, ready to be transferred out.
Wrapping Up
While it’s still a new company, Celsius has earned its stellar reputation as one of the finance platforms changing the world with its suite of products. Although Celsius has several other features, earning interest and borrowing from Celsius are two of its most popular and greatest features.
The APY you can get on your cryptocurrency assets is massive compared to many other interest-generating methods, and the ability to receive a quick loan at a low-interest rate can be life-changing.
If you’re looking for a way to earn interest on your assets that is safer than defi, then you’ll definitely want to consider Celsius. Likewise, if you don’t want to sell your cryptocurrency but want to tap into some of the value, it’s worth looking into getting a loan from this innovative financial services company.
How to Earn Interest with Celsius
There are multiple ways to do this – we’ll go over the route that we imagine most beginners would go through. We will not be going through crypto safety best practices in this section. It is your responsibility to keep your information safe and secure.
Make a Celsius account
- Identify where your cryptocurrency is being held. Some examples are Coinbase, Metamask, and Crypto.com
- Create a Celsius Account
- Check the list of active promo codes and activate the ones you wish to use (you can use multiple promo codes)
- Using either the mobile app or web app go to the “Receive” section. Example of what it looks like on the web app:
- If you’re just starting out you’ll have to click “Add New Coins” to select the coin(s) you want to deposit.
Deposit your cryptocurrency to Celsius
- Now, go to the platform where your cryptocurrency is held (Coinbase, Crypto.com, Metamask, etc). How you send cryptocurrency is different for each platform, but here are resources to do it for the previously mentioned resources. (There are plenty of easy-to-follow Youtube videos as well): Coinbase; Crypto.com; Metamask.
- Go back to the screen in step 5 and hit “Copy Address”. Send the cryptocurrency from the platform you hold your crypto to the address you copied. Make sure that the cryptocurrency you send matches the cryptocurrency of the address you received. For example, if you copied the address for Solana, you want to make sure you only send Solana to that address. Sending Bitcoin to that address will likely result in an error and can lead to losing everything sent.
- Wait 5-15 minutes before checking your Celsius account – it takes time for the cryptocurrency to be transferred
- Once the cryptocurrency is in your Celsius account you’re done! You’ll start earning interest on the deposited assets. In the ‘Receive’ tab Celsius will tell you the balance in USD, the balance of the token, and the APY rewards:
