Celsius (CEL) Network: Initial Thoughts

By scythenoz | Singapore Crypto FI | 27 Jul 2020

Earning on Celsius

I had been exploring Staking alternatives from Crypto.com and Nexo.io for a while now and had the opportunity to dabble into Celsius Network a couple of weeks ago.

Celsius Network allows you to simply Earn, Borrow and Pay on the blockchain and they had promised to share 80% of Celsius' revenue with depositors.

How I got into it?

I took advantage of someone's referral code and got US$20 when I first signed up and deposited my first US$200. This initial deposit needs to sit within Celsius for a month before the US$20 is unlocked in Bitcoin. To be on the safe side, I did not want price fluctuations to get in the way of me earning my referral bonus so I transferred in TrueUSD instead.

I also found another code (SUMMER) on their unofficial Telegram channel. So in total, I deposited a total of TUSD 400 and got USD 40 worth of Bitcoins locked up for a month. I am still unsure if the Bitcoin rewards are going to be given based on the rates I had locked up or only when the rewards unlocked. I am sincerely hoping it was the former as Bitcoin just started mooning this couple of days. I will post an update after I have received my sign-up bonus.

Initial Thoughts

Celsius Earn covers Bitcoins, Stablecoins and Alt Coins in competitive rates as compared to Crypto.com and Nexo.io. Check out the Coins and Interest Rates available on their website here.

One of the main reason I had decided to dabble into Celsius was because of Basic Attention Token (BAT) that I had earned from using Brave Browser. Because of the high minimum staking amount on Crypto.com at 1,250 BAT, I probably will never get enough BAT from Brave to start earning interest.

The deposit process was fairly straightforward and after about 20-40 minutes, my deposit was in and I can see my USD 20 worth of rewards appear.

The Good

Registration process was quick and simple - I signed up, got my KYC done and was approved within the same day. The registration and KYC process took less than 30 minutes.
Fees free - you can withdraw any amount, no matter how large or how little, for free.
Interest Rates are competitive - at 8.69% for stable coins, it exceeds 8% by Nexo.io and 6% by Crypto.com if you do not have any native tokens of each platform.
No minimum deposit - you can earn interest on $5 or $5,000. There's no minimum amount that you need to deposit in.
No lock up - whether you are a long-term hodler or just want to have a temporary place to hold your tokens while earning some interest, Celsius is the right platform for you.
Interest can be earned In-Kind or in CEL tokens - you can opt to either earn in the token you have deposited or in CEL tokens. For most coins apart from stable coins, you can earn a higher interest rate if you choose to earn in CEL token.

The Bad

Mobile-only Experience - does not offer any desktop browser experience unlike Nexo.io
2FA Experience - every time you want to open up the Celsius app, you got to enter your 2FA code. We are talking about after you had logged in for the first time and are just opening up the app again. There is no option for biometric (e.g. fingerprint or Face ID) yet and even the founders had mentioned that they pride this as a security feature.
Payouts are weekly and no fixed time - Celsius interest are calculated Friday to Friday, and are paid out on the subsequent Monday at no fixed time. This means that you may effective have deposited your coins for 9 days before you receive your first interest payout. For comparison, Nexo.io pays out daily interest and it is compounded daily, whereas Crypto.com pays out weekly simple interest.
Complex Loyalty Rewards - loyalty rewards are dependent on the proportion of CEL tokens towards your overall portfolio. You get the highest level at Platinum if you hold more than 15% of your wallet in CEL tokens. The complexity comes where your Bitcoins has been mooning, but CEL tokens have been dropping - so you got to purchase more CEL tokens to retain your status.

The Ugly

The trouble to get Premium Service - unlike Crypto.com where you can get priority service if you are a Crypto Private member. Celsius only offers priority service if you are the Top 100 members with the largest holding of CEL. So you can literally be receiving priority service today and get bumped off Top 100 tomorrow.
Not widely available yet - CEL tokens are not widely available yet. So in order to convert your existing cryptocurrencies to CEL, you need to either use Liquid or Uniswap with ridiculous gas fees at the moment. I am hoping with the growth of Celsius, it will be listed in more Exchanges and make it easier for users to buy Celsius.

TL;DR

Celsius offers competitive interest rates, especially on stable coins. The Good triumphs the Bad and Ugly and I am hopeful that Celsius will get there one day. With no hidden fees, no minimum deposit, and no lock-up, I believe that Celsius is going grow from strength-to-strength and deliver greater rewards to the community.