Celsius Network
The Celsius Network is a market-leading CeFi loan provider and a major retail savings platform for interest-bearing and borrowing accounts with a fiat on-ramp. Celsius Network puts the community first, so it gives 80% of its revenue back to its users in the form of extra earnings on saving and borrowing. Since its launch, the platform has witnessed significant growth due to its combination of attractive return rates, cheap costs, and a robust community.
Celsius Network was established in 2017 in London by Alex Mashinsky, S. Daniel Leon, and Nuke Goldstein. Mashinsky is an experienced entrepreneur and engineer who contributed to the foundations of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and founded two of New York City's top 10 venture-backed exits since 2000.
Daniel Leon, the company's co-founder and chief operating officer (COO), has worked on growing early-stage startups before. In the past, he was the CEO of Atlis Labs, a social discovery and recommendation app that used real-time user referrals.
Celsius now has a large team of core employees, technical developers, and advisors with experience in many different fields.
In 2018, Celsius announced an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), selling 325 million CEL to raise around $50 million (about half of their total supply).
Celsius seeks to outperform banks by providing financial services on terms that traditional financial institutions no longer provide. These include much higher rates of return on savings and deposits, much easier and more fair loan requirements, and rewards that are automatically calculated for each user based on an algorithm. Penalties and bank-like fees are also waived. The platform's CelPay feature also works as a wallet, and it has its own CEL token that users can use to do things like increase payout value.
The Celsius Network is made up of hosted accounts on Celsius and several crypto exchanges. The goal of the Celsius Network is to minimize the transfer of crypto assets outside the system.
Ultimately, the Celsius system consists of four important players:
Lenders are depositors who earn interest on the money they have in their accounts.
Borrowers are traders who want to use borrowed money to take leveraged long or short positions.
The Celsius platform facilitates trades, regulates risk, and establishes trading fees.
External exchange markets deal with borrowing and providing liquidity in the market.
The Celsius Network token, or CEL, is an Ethereum (ERC20) utility token that facilitates transactions within the Celsius Network Ecosystem.
Better earning rates: Users of the platform can choose to earn interest in CEL for a higher yield when they deposit assets.
Better dollar and coin loan rates: Users of the platform can choose to pay back their debt in CEL to get more discounts when borrowing.
DATE NEWS/EVENTS IMPACT 08/12/2022 A federal judge has ordered cryptocurrency lender Celsius to return crypto worth $44 million to its customers -23% Decrease 30/09/2022 Texas, Vermont regulators object to Celsius stablecoin sale plan -22% Decrease 02/09/2022 The CEL increases as the Celsius Network plans to refund $50M to customers +50% Increase 11/04/2022 Celsius Network says that its U.S. platform will start holding the coins of non-accredited investors in custody meaning that investors won't be able to add new assets or earn rewards on Celsius' Earn platform -47% Decrease 22/09/2020 Celsius raises $10 million with Tether as the lead investor +55% Increase
Despite the increasing momentum of decentralized finance, fintech startups such as The Celsius Network are developing in the space between centralized and decentralized financial systems. This middle ground is a natural step toward a totally decentralized future and the benefits it can bring. Companies such as Celsius effectively navigate this paradigm by offering a platform that incentivizes and simplifies financial services using a utility token (CEL) throughout network activity. As more and more people look into the idea of not using a bank, fintech and DeFi will undoubtedly play important and complementary roles in the next generation of financial services. The Celsius Network is a great example of how this kind of interaction can lead to value.
