Celsius Network Progress Report (Free) 📈
HODLer's Den By Aromatic (Free Version)
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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
Update
Celsius Network’s Assets Under Management (AUM) now exceeds 1 billion USD according to the most recent AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Alex Mashinsky. This is wonderful news for Celsius Network (CN) as they continue to grow. However, the platform is still lacking in some token deposits such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin (BTC), among several others.
Below are the current interest rates on the Celsius Network platform. If you want a more comprehensive list you can visit this Crypto Interest Rate Tracker spreadsheet, which is updated weekly, to help you determine where to park your coins to maximize your returns.
During the previous AMAs since the last progress report, it was reiterated several times that CN has one of the best security when compared with its competitors. Mashinsky mentions that CN has never been hacked or sim swapped—probably referring to BlockFi’s security breach back in May 2020. The CN team members stated that a major challenge is to make the platform simple for users while holding security to the highest standard—it is a fine balance between making the platform fast for users while maintaining security to protect users’ assets.
Celsius Network pays all withdrawal fees for its customers and they can do this because they make enough money by deploying customers’ assets and generating 20% interest to cover the fees. The interest rates for HODLing on CN are a bit lower than most of their competitors but make sure to include all the hidden costs and fees from other interest-earning platforms to make a fair comparison. For example, some platforms will allow for free transfers via ACH (Automated Clearing House) and SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area), but in return, have high withdrawal fees and high withdrawal minimums.
They doubled the customer service team, so hopefully that should reduce wait times for any support tickets. It is recommended that you ask questions through Telegram rather than emailing the customer support team to help reduce congestion. I remember having to wait quite a bit back in the early days when I had a problem. They resolved my issue but it took some time. I have not had an issue with the Celsius Network app for quite some time now. With the increase in customer service team members, they hope to bring response times back down to 24 hours even though it says that it may take up to 7 days for a response due to COVID-19.
If you use the Celsius Network app, you will probably notice that it can be clunky at times—I certainly do. The good news is they are beta testing a new app for mobile and also a desktop version. If you are interested in the beta testing and would like to participate, please reach out to the Celsius Network team—they are looking for more beta testers.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
Mashinsky is honest and transparent, stating that Celsius Network does participate in DeFi projects but emphasized that they stick to Maker and Compound since these projects have been around for quite some time and have had their codes audited—this means looking over smart contracts for bugs and checking virtual machines. He loves the idea of the YAM project and think it is a noble effort but reminded users to be careful with where they invest their money because a mistake can set them back quite a bit. Many investors threw money into YAM even though it was only 24 hours old with unaudited code.
As I have mentioned in my DeFi reports, high gas fees is a huge barrier for many investors to participate in DeFi projects. The reason Celsius Network is able to handle the high fees associated with DeFi is because they deploy large amounts of assets at a time so fees are basically negligible.
While CN does participate in DeFi, Mashinsky claims that Centralized Finance (CeFi) is better than DeFi because CeFi is safe and has been around longer. CeFi platforms like Celsius Network also take care of all the fees while DeFi requires many fees. Ultimately, CeFi and DeFi can work together because both are heading in the same direction with a similar goal: generating interests on investments for its users. Celsius Network hopes to blend institutional and DeFi to yield the best interest rates for its customers.
Speaking of DeFi, CNrecently added 5 staking coins to the platform with incredibly high interest rates.
The reason these newly added coins have such high interest rates is because these coins themselves already yield a decent amount of earnings and so CN literally pays you those exact rates. Of course, you can stake on your own to earn even more but it would require a lot more work and effort on your end.
Interest Earned
It has been 4 weeks since my last report on Celsius Network earnings and during that time my account has earned an additional 1158 USD—not bad at all. However, remember that the market is up quite a bit since then and this does affect the Total Interest Earned calculation. 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 grew 20% in just 4 weeks time.
Conclusion & Prospect
A huge chunk of my portfolio comes from buying CEL at a low price and HODLing. The gains I have made from HODLing CEL really paid off, however, CEL took a dip. According to the most recent AMA, Mashinsky stated that the drop in CEL was because on of the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) holder decided to cash out his staked position. He has been selling off CEL in chunks of 500,000 coins at a time and according to Mashinsky, the process is almost complete. CEL currently sits at a price of 0.37 USD.
During one of the AMA, it was noted that China and Russia will stray away from using the dollar standard. These are two major countries and economies that have announced that they will not transact in dollars. In addition, Mashinsky mentioned that major banks will need assistance from the government within the next 5 to 10 years due to the current recession and the debasement of currency. There is too much debt worldwide—trillion of dollars that need to be refinanced.
To protect your assets, it is recommended that you hold 20% in non-correlated assets such as gold, silver, and of course, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. With inflation on the rise and newly printed money flooding the market, it is important to disconnect yourself from the dollar or any other fiat currency for that matter. This is definitely important if you have a nest egg saved for retirement because it is at risk of losing tremendous value which means you may end up working longer than intended.
Many users, like myself, forget that Celsius Network was the first platform to provide interest on cryptocurrencies. Like Mashinsky said, when CN was announced there was a lot of backlash and mentions of it being a scam. I clearly remember thinking the same thing because the crypto market had just crashed earlier that year and BitConnect was always in the back of my head. C1S and I discussed it over the span of several months and we did research on Celsius Network before I decided to give it a try. The main reason we decided it was a legitimate platform was because Mashinsky had a reputable background. Even so, I only started with a small amount of assets. Once I started seeing my interest payments, I was hooked. Not only were the rates amazing compared to what traditional financial institutions were offering, you have to take into account that the interest you are earning could appreciate as well—I like to think of it as compounding on crack—so, it was basically a HODLer’s dream.
Celsius Network is doing most of the innovation and planning—they do not have anyone to copy or clone. Although there are many clones of Celsius Network, I still have my assets with CN because I know it is the safest option. I know the team is constantly working in my best interest and that Celsius Network continues to stay ahead of its competitors. They recently reduced fees for deposits via ACH and SEPA while increasing the withdrawal limits which allows you to move larger amounts of funds without having to do extra security measures.
Finally, Mashinsky said that American users can expect some bonus rewards or surprise on Monday August 24th, 2020. As a token of their appreciation to United States users for their patience and for being loyal to Celsius Network even though they cannot earn interest on CEL, US user will get the “Platinum Treatment” according to the AMA. I am excited to see what CN will announce Monday morning in addition to receiving our weekly interest earnings!
Each week I will report on a different interest-earning platform that I use—mainly, Celsius Network, Bitrue, Crypto.com, and BlockFi
If you do not have an account with Celsius Network and would like to support my work, please use this referral link to sign up and earn $20 in BTC with your first deposit of $200 or more! Much is appreciated!