Celsius Network Weekly AMA– December 4, 2020
With Alex Mashinsky and Zach Wildes, Community Manager
This week’s AMA begins with some updates from Alex, followed by community questions. As always, the timestamp from YouTube is hyperlinked to each question below.
Summary: Alex starts off with the impressive news that Celsius just had a day with a net $17 million in deposits—but they still need more ETH and more stablecoins! Celsius has had many loans requested recently, and also has staked 25,000 in the ETH Beacon Chain contract. UK loans are still being offered at 0% interest (no, really!), and although the regulators are taking their time, Celsius should be able to transact in Australian Dollars very soon.
In other exciting news, Alex confirmed that in-app swaps would be coming in December or January, should be available to users in the US, will not have any fees, and will be available to platinum users first. OTC minimums have also been lowered to $10,000 to make OTC buying more feasible more smaller CEL buyers.There’s also a new promo code available for new users—START, which gives you a $10 reward for depositing $10 in any coin.
If you’ve noticed an issue with either referral or promo code bonuses not showing up in your wallet, never fear—the team is working on a fix that should be deployed next week. The bonuses are still being credited, they’re just not showing up, and this update should fix that. Finally, Alex announced that Celsius’ web dashboard was now live in beta testing and will soon be open to all users.This web dashboard pulls data from Celsius’ API and will eventually be integrated with Proof of Community.
And if you’d like to earn interest on your crypto, gold, and stablecoins with Celsius, scroll to the end for instructions on how to get $20 in BTC when you sign up.
Updates with Alex
- Swaps are coming! These will be available first to platinum users, then to everyone else, and should go live toward the end of December or beginning of January.
- $17 million is never enough. Celsius just saw a day with $17 million in net deposits, but still needs more ETH and stablecoins!
- OTC minimums lowered. The minimum buy with Celsius’ OTC desk (otc@celsius.network) has been lowered from $25,000 down to $10,000. The OTC desk allows you to buy or sell large quantities of CEL for a set price, without any slippage! Buyers can also get up to a 5% discount, based on how large their purchase is.
- Two big interviews coming up. We have a surprise interview that will be released Monday, and we also conducted an interview with Bloomberg TV to discuss our audit with Chainalysis.
- It takes a lot to make VoIP and MoIP and reality. I had to do a lot of campaigning at conferences to help make VoIP successful, and I’ve been doing the same thing for Celsius (aka MoIP). Before COVID, I went to over 200 conferences to promote Celsius and help make it into the success that it is today. The banks are even tougher competitors than the phone companies, so there’s still a lot of work left to be done.
- Let’s talk about COVID. COVID is a horrible thing, but it’s accelerating digital adoption. Things that would’ve taken ten years to reach mass adoption are now being adopted overnight. And this also means that adoption for cryptocurrencies will be coming even faster—and this industry moves so quickly, that even pros like me are only six months ahead of anyone else.
- The web dashboard beta is live! Although it’s currently only open to beta testers, it will soon be opened up to everyone. This web dashboard pulls data from Celsius’ API and will also be eventually where Proof of Community will integrate.
- Celsius media blitz! Alex showed CoinPaprika, which gives the most accurate representation of Celsius’ marketcap (although CoinGecko is good too). Alex wrote an article on Nasdaq about Bitcoin’s rally, Alex reminded us of Celsius’ contributed of 25,000 ETH to the ETH 2.0 staking contract in of their support of Ethereum, and he also showed the amazing numbers regarding how much interest Celsius has been paying out over the past few weeks. Alex also discussed the noise around stablecoin regulations—as always, Celsius’ job is to generate yield, no matter what happens with regulations.
- The Mashinsky Method. Seven steps to help you get to financial freedom. 1. Make a financial plan, know your destination (what you need) 2. Financial freedom means that you save and make your money work for you. 3. Reduce high-interest debt, don’t worry about good debt (low-interest mortgages) 4. Grow your savings, don’t buy frivolous things (and grow them faster in Celsius!) 5. Know how much money you need for retirement 6. Never stop learning, there are always new ways of earning yield 7. Manage your risk! Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, don’t over-leverage yourself.
Community Questions
Q: Why aren’t my promo or referral code rewards showing up?
Alex: We know that this is a bug, and our team promised that next week they will have a release that fixes that. So don’t worry, your funds and bonuses are still there and should be visible whenever we release the update.
Q: You put out a good video about Spark, could you tell us a little more about that?
Alex: Yeah, Nuke did a good video about that—who do you think he looks like with that mustache? Bruce Willis? But as long as your XRP is in the account before December 11th, then you will be credited for the snapshot and will get your Spark token when they’re released in 2021.
Q: Can we get an update on the in-app swaps?
Alex: It’s in development, we’re testing it as we speak. No fees for swapping inside the app—meaning that it will be the best platform for you to swap.
Q: Are UK loans really at 0%?
Alex: Yep, they’re really 0%. Our competitors charge much higher rates, and they charge you origination fees! Never any fees at Celsius—we make all of our money from yield, not from fees.
Q: Will US users be able to use the swap feature, and will they be able to swap for CEL?
Alex: A lot of these issues are still pending—but likely anything that is approved in the Coinbase wallet, they got approved, so we should be able to get it approved. Don’t worry though, the final answers should be coming soon. And there will be a flood of new features coming in December and January!
Q: Will Celsius be supporting digital tokenized stocks and bonds?
Alex: Yeah, so in the past, we identified stablecoins as being the next big thing in crypto and focused on that, and we were rewarded for it. So I’m not saying that security tokens aren’t going to happen, but I think that part of the industry is going to take a very long time to develop, and right now we are focused on generating yield for you.
Q: Do you have plans to come out with a credit card to compete with BlockFi?
Alex: Us not having a card is competing with the BlockFi card—which is trying to get you to spend money that you don’t have and pay 25% in interest and pay $200 a year for the annual fee. Fidelity offers a card with no strings attached that gives you 2% back on all of your purchases—so that’s my answer to BlockFi, go get a Fidelity card. When we have a card that’s better than the Fidelity card, then we will issue it.
Q: Why do governments not like stablecoins?
Alex: Depends on who, the US government actually likes stablecoins. If you’re the Brazilian government, and all of your citizens start using stablecoins, then you won’t like that because printing your money doesn’t do any good because your citizens are really using US Dollars. I know there is a current bill talking about regulating stablecoins so they don’t prey on poor people, but that’s not actually what these governments are worried about. And most of the stablecoins we offer are trust companies, which means they must have dollars backing every token they issue.
Q: Any update on service in Australia?
Alex: Yeah, because of COVID it seems that bureaucracy in Australia has slowed to a halt! We haven’t heard back about our applications, but we are hoping to hear back this month or next month. You can still deposit stablecoins and take a loan, we just can’t take Australian dollars yet. We’re also hiring several positions in Australia!
Q: Will Celsius go public? What is the timeframe?
Alex: That’s a good question—no plans now, but we’ll let you know when we have a plan.
Q: If I took a loan for six months, can I pay it back early?
Alex: Yep, you can pay your loan back at any time with no penalty, you just need to pay the first six months of interest—and with 1% loans, that’s almost nothing.
Q: Any plans to allow deposits of coins that do not earn a yield?
Alex: Yeah, we’ve thought about this before, but ultimately it would cost us money to do this, which would pull yield away from the assets that we’re actually earning on. This is something we’re looking to add in the future, though.
Q: If I make an OTC purchase, is there a required lockup?
Alex: You need to email OTC to ask them about any required lockups you might have for your buys.
Q: Where do you see BTC peaking this next cycle?
Alex: We have a video on our YouTube channel where I discuss this—go check it out.
Q: What’s the new promo code?
Zach: This is for new users—they just need to use the promo code START, and transfer in $10, and they’ll get a $10 bonus after 30 days.
Q: Why is CEL token not listed on major exchanges?
Alex: I had a visit here at my house with one of the top three exchanges, and I explained that we won’t pay listing fees—we have the best customers in crypto, and we don’t think we should be paying to bring them to an exchange. For now, we have a lot of volume on Uniswap, which we think is great because all trading fees go to liquidity providers. So sooner or later, all of these major exchanges are going to list us and share their fees with Celsians—mark my words.
Q: Will recent volatility lead to higher rates for depositors?
Alex: Yep, volatility usually means higher rates, but right now there’s a lot of demand for stablecoins and less demand for BTC, so the rates for BTC are coming down.
Q: With ETH 2.0 staking, is there any plans to offer a long-term rate?
Alex: We’re planning to have a separate deposit address, so each time you deposit ETH you can decide if you want it to go into our basket of ETH that earns interest in many different ways, or just earning interest via staking. We’ll be publishing the rates weekly on what the rates are for both of these—and we’re not taking any fees for the ETH 2.0 staking.
Q: What is current loan minimum?
Alex: Our loan minimum is $500! And of course, we have no fees, no penalties, and everyone is pre-approved. Any of the assets we support, you can take a loan against, for as low as 0.7% (or even 0% if you’re in the UK).
Q: Has Celsius reached out to companies like MicroStrategy that hold significant amounts of BTC?
Alex: We have about 100 companies that have been joining Celsius every month because they want to put their treasury in Celsius. I know MicroStrategy bought all of their BTC from Coinbase, and Coinbase is one of the best sources of Celsius customers, so we will definitely follow up on that.
Q: If I take a loan on Celsius, does the collateral count toward my CEL reward level?
Alex: Yep, whatever your current loyalty level is, it won’t change when you take a loan—it’s still your CEL token.
Q: If the value of the collateral given by borrowers crash, how does this affect Celsius?
Alex: This is why we only allow up to 50% LTV for most assets. The biggest crashes BTC has seen in a day have been around 30–40%, and if we need to we can always issue margin calls to ask for more collateral. If you’re getting close to that range, we will also reach out to you proactively to ask you to add more collateral to keep you far away from being liquidated. All of our competitors love liquidating you because they make fees from it—but Celsius has no incentive to liquidate you because we don’t gain anything from it except unhappy users.
Want to unbank yourself with Celsius (and get a free $20)?
- Install the Celsius wallet (https://celsius.network/get-the-app/)
- Use a referral code during registration (137247d31d)
- Deposit $200 of crypto or stablecoins
You will earn $20 in BTC once you hold your deposit for 30 days
