From one who has been recently burned, let me tell you a short story, and then you will understand a bit better why a crypto wallet like TallyHo makes a lot more sense these days.
I’ve been in crypto for a couple of years now, experimenting and working with different tools, coins, earning programs and what not. In 2020 I did well, like a lot of others, but by 2021 I had to get more creative; just riding the wave wasn't enough, especially as it started to drop and flutter. However, one thing I avoided and did not take advantage of was staking and swaps. I was aware of them, especially after the Uniswap airdrop, and I even experimented a bit with Sushiswap staking. Unfortunately, by that point, ETH gas fees had skyrocketed so high, many of the swap tools and liquidity pools I wanted to try became too expensive for an individual, amateur investor per transaction. I would have needed to move $5,000 or more to make it worthwhile. Even FARM’s Harvest Finance platform went out of reach, for example.
Then I saw Celsius. It became extremely attractive as an “advanced” crypto investment tool, not only because it provided some semblance of staking, but it also was offering some sizable signup bonuses. Picking up an extra $50 in BTC, for example, was rather attractive. All I had to do was transfer $250 in USDC, take a $10 gas fee bite, and I netted $40 more in BTC. Then I explored that tool more and took advantage of staking BCH and DASH as well. It wasn’t big wins, but Celsius was paying consistently, and I was making money before the big winter crash happened. By the time things started getting ugly, I had about $450 in Celsius in various coins, with a 20 percent profit. Not bad for a few months of effort. However, while I didn’t expose myself to their crypto loans (saw the same on Nexo), I was effectively putting my money in a centralized wallet. This was the big mistake.
I heard about the news late, on crypto news wires and discord chatter a day after the crypto crash and LUNA debacle. By then, my account was already frozen. It was LUNA all over again, but this time my own money was involved. As most of us are aware, Celsius declared bankruptcy on July 13 this month, after three weeks of blocking any user account from transferring out. Not only had my money lost value due to the crypto crash, but the $250 or so I had left couldn’t be moved. And, by filing notice, I’ve now personally become a bankruptcy creditor for the first time in my life. Oh joy. Having been in an accounting role in my day job, I’ve had to appear at a few bankruptcy proceedings to secure a position in my employer’s interests. It’s not a fun thing to watch and rarely does anything dubbed “unsecured” debt ever see any kind of recovery.
More frustrating, and luckily I didn’t engage in it, those who bought Celsius native coin for more investment may have allegedly been on the loss end of insider liquidations of Celsius coin value through a variety of wallets days before the bankruptcy was filed. I wonder if those characters are aware of how powerful the bankruptcy trustee’s authority is to claw back transferred assets up to a year before the filing? (woops). It could even affect the loans Celsius did pay off right before filing, forcing those players to cough of the settled loan funds or equivalent to the bankruptcy court after the fact. What a mess.
In any case, what does the above have anything to do with Tally Ho Wallet? In a nutshell, Tally Ho fundamentally operates very different from a centralized crypto platform like the above. Rather than the managed platform Celsius was, which obviously was turned against users without any input from them in the matter, Tally Ho operates in a much more decentralized fashion. Why does that matter? First and foremost, you have more control of your coins. Unlike what happened to me with my Celsius holdings that I’m probably never going to see recovery on, there is no centralized administrator on Tally Ho. This is a key consumer protection that in practice blocks what happened with Celsius’ grab happening again for Tally Ho holders.
Second, Tally Ho is not a swap per se. While it might offer the tool to use, fundamentally, it is a wallet first. That again means you’re in control of your coins, not a position in a swap pool. Think about this from the perspective of Coinbase; during their recent concerns about that exchange’s bankruptcy, that company had to admit its user’s assets on the exchange could be vulnerable to seizure and loss if Coinbase had to file. That’s essentially what happened with Celsius. It's better known as "custodial accounts." The only protection Coinbase users have is to use the Coinbase wallet app or another crypto wallet separate from the exchange and only move their coins into the exchange to buy or sell and then move them out again. Granted, it means more fees, but at least you control your money. Obviously, reading that, I emptied out my Coinbase exchange account as well with only my ETH 2.0 coins locked up unfortunately.
Are other options better? Providers like Binance, Paypal, Venmo, Kucoin and Crypto.com are the same. Fundamentally, if you are working with a custodial account, your money is under someone else's control, period. Technically, it's not even your money anymore; your figures you see are just a digital account that can be turned off.
So, yes, I’m probably out this year a couple hundred dollars thanks to Celsius, in addition to value loss in the crypto fall bleed that’s been going since 2021. But I hope that with my example and loss folks see a bit more why a decentralized tool like #TallyHoWallet makes a lot more sense. Between liquidity pool hacks and exchange bankruptcies, it’s pretty clear again that if you don’t own the wallet, you don’t own your money. Period. I’ve opened up my Tally Ho account.
