In Nigeria, we have a slang that goes " big English" that is akin to what people in other places call "bullshitting". It is a scenario where an individual or entity, like Celsius, for example, spins up narratives, rules and random shit out of their ass because they screwed up and can't fix the problem.
In the past couple of weeks, Celsius has been speaking big English to their customers, offering them false hopes about claiming their funds. In a bid to cover their ass, Celsius has spun up new rules, violated their own terms of service, edited it, added new rules, created and exploited loopholes in a bid to slow down the world of pain that is coming their way.
I tell you this, the lawsuits are piling up against the Crypto lending platform that bit far more than it can chew.
At the time of writing, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Users' funds are still stuck on the platform. The owners want their money back and Celsius can't do that right now.
In some way, we could look at the Celsius situation as a consequence of building on the hubris of a bull market. With a little skin in the game, you'll know that a Bull market is extremely inflated and you really shouldn't be leveraged in such a volatile situation.
In fact, when you think about it, in the past couple of months where the market has been "bearish", we've had relative stability and the trading pattern of most assets has been predictable.
In any case, Celsius is currently in a very tight situation and this is despite their attempt to alleviate the stress on the system.
"Big English"
As covered by Cointelegraph, Celsius plans to refund $50m out of a reported $210m that is currently locked up in their "custodial program". Naturally, this has led to an outcry from the crypto community because it only pleases a selected section of customers.
There’s a catch, however, as the motion will only apply to Custody and Withold Accounts and for custodied assets worth $7,575 or less in value.
Here's the funny thing in this whole debacle, Celsius has a "Custody" program where you don't actually earn dividend for storing your crypto. So, this is basically a storage wallet for your crypto and I guess it is meant for people who don't want to go through the "hassle" of protecting their keys.
So, people essentially send their crypto to Celsius to store it there in the same way people feel comfortable with storing it on an exchange. People in this category are the "owners" of their funds but we all know that if it is not your keys then it is not your coins.
It is baffling how many times we have to remind people of this very basic rule of crypto. How many exchanges and lending platforms have to file for bankruptcy before people actually learn this very simple fact?
In keeping with the theme of troubled exchanges, Celsius spun new narratives into the equation,
To attain that $50 million figure, Celsius lawyers have distinguished between “Pure Custody/Withhold Assets” and “Transferred Custody/Withhold Assets,” with “Pure” assets those which were not transferred from the Earn or Borrow Programs.
If a mosquito lands on your balls, how do you handle it? Celsius is that mosquito that has customers by the balls. They'll keep spinning new rules to mitigate the damage of bankruptcy, as well as the endless wave of lawsuits that will be coming their way.
