I've been using Celsius since about 2020 and compared to BlockFi they sometimes had better APYs but the one thing that made Celsius way better then BlockFi was when you submitted a withdrawal it was instantly transferred on the blockchain and in 10 mins or less your coins were in your whitelisted withdrawal address. I started my rapport with the company with a small amount of BTC for many months and over the course of my time using the platform I lent larger amounts of various coins. Aesthetically their UI on the mobile app was very pleasing, clean and easy to navigate: it had enough security features that made you feel your account was safe F2A authentication, 24 hour option to Hold or Unhold funds with a specific passcode to your email, login logs with IP address.

Sometime in June I came across an article of Mynima that ended with shilling promotion codes: 600 BTC reward for 3 months stake caught my attention. Now I was very reluctant to take this risk because I'm very boolish on the upcoming market for the end of the year but from my time using CeFi $600 worth BTC for 3 months is a deal for the time staked. You would need close to a year with stable rates to get that amount normally. So I took the plunge even though I knew I should be holding my own Keys anyway fast forward to Aug 5 and all of a sudden I get an Updated terms of Service notification in the app saying if I don't accept ToS I won't be able to use the Mobile App or Web App and if I don't agree with ToS after Aug 19 I need to contact customer service to make a withdrawal of any amount remaining in my account. I finally got around to reading their Terms of Service and under no circumstances would I ever agree to nor should you if your a Celsius user.

Here are the quick bullet points

All Digital Assets transferred to Celsius as part of the services are owned and held by Celsius for it's own account.

9. Setoff and Security Interest Rights

We may take or set off from any Eligible Digital Asset balance in Your Celsius Accounts, or deduct from any obligations Celsius may have to you, any direct, indirect, and acquired Obligations that you owe us or our Affiliates.

10. Risk Disclosure 

Your Celsius Account is not a checking or savings account, and it is not covered by insurance against losses. You are, however, exposed to the possibility of Celsius becoming unable to repay its obligations in part or in full, in which case your Digital Assets may be at risk.

11. Withdrawals

Celsius is not and will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred by you as a result of such cyber-attacks, operational or technical difficulties or suspensions of transactions.

We may refuse to accept such request, or delay the processing of an approved request for any reasonable reason including but not limited to inaccurate or misleading information provided by you, or any doubt or suspicion of fraud, crime related to your Celsius Account.

13. Consent to Celsius' Use of Digital Assets

  (i) You will not be able to exercise rights of ownership

 (iii) In the event that Celsius becomes bankrupt, enters liquidation or is otherwise unable to repay its obligations, you may not be able to recover or regain ownership of such Digital Assets, and other than your rights as a creditor of Celsius under any applicable laws, you may not have any legal remedies or rights in connection with Celsius' obligations to you.

22. Disclosure of Celsius Account Information

We may disclose information to third parties about you, your Celsius Account, or the transactions you make

 (v) In order to comply with any request or order by any government agency or competent court.

https://celsius.network/terms-of-use

How Celsius is now like a Central Bank Digital Currency

1) Cryptocurrency transfer to their platform is no longer yours it is their's.

2) Using Celsius mobile app is subscription to a service that can be arbitrarily suspended for any reason

  (i) They have full autonomy of your lent funds and may take from your account balance any funds owe to them at their                  discretion

3) Celsius is insured if they incur any loss but your account has no insurance to cover your loss from their platform

4) Celsius will freely share your information with any government agency that asks

 Now I'm sure I could've contacted customer service and asked if I didn't agree to their ToS and still receive my stake reward at the end of August but I was so angry and afraid of what I read that on principle I had to forfeit the stake based solely on my autonomy to still access my funds myself. On top of that this was a premeditated move it wasn't acknowledged in any of the AMAs and they were betting on everyone not reading the ToS and just agreeing to it through the mobile app.  I should've listen to my gut instead of my greed; it wasn't a complete waste, I was earning roughly $24 a week for 2 months. Not Your Keys Not Your Crypto. Centralized Banks are already outdated at this point with DeFi and liquidity pools and their rates are garbage in comparison. If your new to Crypto I started with CeFi because I didn't know any better. Trust me do your own research and you can trust the code of a smart contract way more than can trust any Centralized Entity. If you can't afford Ethereum's gas fees then try Layer 2 with Polygon if you try Bianance Smart Chain know that the chain sacrificed security for scalability and Bianance is a centralized entity that will do the same to you as all the others. We don't need banks anymore there is a LP pool or DAO waiting for you as a matter of fact your you're own bank and your power in the blockchain is your autonomy to access it via your private keys don't give them up ever!