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Disclaimer: Nothing in this report constitutes investment advice—I am just reporting on my accounts and its progress on each platform. You should not use this report to make financial decisions. I recommend you seek professional advice from someone who is authorized to provide investment advice.
Hey everyone and welcome to the HODLer’s Den!
Here you will find information on my crypto investment portfolio straight from a HODLer’s perspective. This section will focus on HODLing cryptos and interest-earning platforms.
Celsius Network
Customer Care & Customer Focus
You can now call customer care and speak to a real person in the Las Vegas call center.
The number is 1-866-HODL-NOW (1-866-463-5669).
The goal is to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, but currently hours are limited and users should check the Celsius Network (CN) website for customer care hours.
Mashinsky stated that CN would rather pay its customers more in interest than spend money to put a logo on a building or stadium like its competitors.
The Celsius Network business model is different in that they do not pay to advertise, they pay to earn more customers.
Roadmap
While the team is working hard on releasing the credit card, it is not a top priority.
The 3 main priorities are the in-app swap, on-ramps, and the ability for accredited investors to earn in CEL.
In-app swap is available to a select few users in the United States with the goal to expand it beyond the US.
Once the swap feature is complete, the focus will switch to on-ramps which should make it super easy to convert USD into stablecoins and then into cryptocurrencies.
This will allow conversion of fiat into stablecoins directly through Celsius Network instead of going through Coinbase.
Badger DAO Hack
Celsius Network lost over 50 million USD in the recent Badger DAO hack, however, no users lost any money.
Because CN has a massive balance sheet, they can handle the loss. Of course it is not ideal, but this is the advantage of using a CeFi platform—you are shielded from the prevalent amounts of DeFi hacks.
Celsius X
Celsius X is the DeFi wing of Celsius Network.
They want to make it simple for people with little to no DeFi experience—basically, DeFi that is super simple to use.
The current launch date is February 2022 or so.
CEL will be at the center of Celsius X and hence it will help increase CEL utility and make CEL more scarce.
Miscellaneous
Celsius Network reduced interest rates for Bitcoin (BTC). In addition, the first tier rate of 6.2% APR only applies to 0.25 BTC (it was 1 BTC before this change).
There is an inverse relation of BTC and ETH in regards to stablecoins. Hence if interest rates for stablecoins are up, then BTC and ETH will see lower rates and vice versa.
Mashinksy still predicts that BTC will top out at 140k to 160k USD during this cycle which should happen during the first half of 2022.
The price of CEL tanked because an ICO-buyer was selling huge amounts (about 12 million USD worth of CEL) so Mashinsky bought all of it from this person and sent it into Celsius Network’s treasury.
Interest Earned
It has been 5 weeks since my last report on Celsius Network earnings and during that time my interest earnings lost over 9500 USD in value. You can monitor this Google Sheet where I track all my earnings from a variety of platforms and it gives percent changes. According to the spreadsheet, my total earnings decreased by 12% in 5 weeks.
Most of my assets are split among the four platforms that I use: Celsius Network, BlockFi, Bitrue, and Crypto.com. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum make up a nice portion of my portfolio and they have retraced quite a bit.
You can use the Interest Rate Tracker to find the best APR rates across several platforms to fit your HODLing needs.
BTC is currently at 47.8k USD, ETH is at 4002 USD, and CEL is at 3.85 USD as of writing this report.
Conclusion & Prospect
The crypto market recovered a bit but still in a deep retracement. Mashinsky stated that many are harvesting their tax losses before the end of the year so they are selling their cryptos and will be buying back during the new year.
The price of CEL dropping was explained but I believe there are many other factors that contributed. Even though the Badger DAO hack did not affect users’ funds, it remains bad publicity for Celsius Network. We expect Celsius Network to be cautious in its investments and losing over 50 million USD in assets is devastating.
Other factors, in my opinion, include the delays on many of the features that were promised earlier in 2021 like the credit card and in-app swap. With every AMA, the dates have been moved back with no exact launch dates and it feels like the community is starting to lose hope.
In addition, other CeFi platforms like Crypto.com and Bitrue are already ahead of the game in terms of DeFi adoption while Celsius Network just recently announced Celsius X. Mashinsky always mentions that Celsius Network “invented” DeFi and was the first platform to do it by paying users interest, yet it is quickly falling behind its competitors.
I still have strong hopes in Celsius Network despite its short-comings. I believe they are tackling too many things at the same time and it is causing massive delays but once it all comes together it will be a glorious day for the platform.
Celsius Network is busy laying a strong foundation and it has always been a platform that is community-focused in that it tries its best to have little to no fees. While the customer care center is a great implementation and I commend them for it, I feel like it should have been a lower priority.
With 2022 just around the corner, I hope Celsius Network will bring more utility to CEL and lead the charge in “unbanking” yourself.
Each week I will report on a different interest-earning platform that I use—mainly, Celsius Network, Bitrue, Crypto.com, and BlockFi.
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What I Am Doing
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