Thanks to 
It turns out that this is actually true! You can earn 4.74% interest on your Bitcoin (at time of writing), paid out weekly in satoshi (the denomination of Bitcoin) by just holding Bitcoin in the Celsius app. The caveat is that it's not your own wallet and as that familiar saying goes "not your keys, not your crypto", this is also true. So if you do just want to keep your crypto in a ledger and know that it's yours, then do that!
However, I've been using this app for a couple of months now and can't see it fading away any time soon as, in that time, the amount of crypto assets held or borrowed against on the Celsius network has gone from $2.2 billion in November 2020 to $3.3 billion today! You can see this figure in the app itself but if you want a pretty well balanced article/review from last month (November 2020) then Bitcompare have written a balanced one here although I think 2 out of 5 is a little harsh!
The CEL token is native to the Celsius app and the more CEL you have, the better interest rates you earn on the crypto you hold when you choose to have your interest paid out in CEL tokens. If more than 20% of the fiat value of your portfolio is in CEL then you will earn up to 30% more interest. If you just want to earn interest in the token you hold (i.e. "in-kind") then that 30% bonus won't apply - see the table below to see the different rates for Ethereum, CEL and Bitcoin taken from their site.
So you can see that you're encouraged to buy more CEL to get the highest interest rates for holding your crypto and this is evolving with all the price movements we've been seeing lately!
With that "reason" to hold CEL, you can see from the screenshot below (from CoinGecko) over the last month (December 2020) that the token price has risen dramatically from £1.69 to £3.19 and it's starting to shoot up the market cap rankings. Last time I checked back in November, it was floating around mid 30s, now it's at number 20!
You might be thinking that this is all because of Bitcoin's price movements and it's dragging everything up with it in terms of fiat value so I thought I'd investigate how it compares when valued in satoshis. Similar looking chart (again from CoinGecko), this time, up about 30% in sats vs 30 days ago:
Well, we're still a long way away from mainstream adoption to crypto but whenever I speak to my friends about it, I tend to bring up Celsius and the interest rates as that's what the common pinch point/pain is at the moment with interest rates in the UK being so low. Even if you don't want to buy CEL tokens, you don't need to as you will still earn 4.74% interest in sats anyway.
The app is pretty easy to use and feels secure when you have 2 Factor Authentication set up. Yes, you need to do KYC checks for anti-money laundering purposes etc but once you're set up, the concept is familiar - send your money in, earn interest. There's also regular bonuses to be had if you deposit a certain amount to receive $20-25 in BTC - how many high street banks regularly offer that?
However, as I alluded to earlier, one sticking point is that Celsius not backed by any Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). After browsing on their site, I found an FAQ about insurance and what should happen if Celsius goes bankrupt (updated in November 2020):
They refer to their T & Cs - check section 10 - where they make it clear this is not checking or savings account and they are not insured against losses so you will need to bear that in mind too. However, if you just put in an amount you won't lose sleep over IF the worst case happens then no dramas! You can also withdraw your funds immediately with no fees in any case.
I'm pretty happy about discovering CEL and Celsius as an additional way to add to your overall "savings pot" and although I don't have a vast amount there, it's enough to keep the pennies ticking over with the compound interest! Add to that, the growth at which the token is moving at implies that there's a good use case for this token and who knows how things will shape up at the end of 2021!
The landscape might be totally different in 12 months but with the amount of institutional money coming in, it feels like we're in a massive growth phase and as investors look for ways to preserve the value of their "cash" - the temperature of CEL could also heating up too!
What are your thoughts on CEL? How are you finding the Celsius Network? Do you think it is here to stay or will it fall away with other CeFi projects taking precedence? Let me know in the comments below!
Take care
Nicky
I'm not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. Always do your own research before spending/investing your money
