Celsius Network ICO review

Celsius is a peer to peer decentralized lending and borrowing platform.

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BASIC INFO

Website: https://celsius.network/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CelsiusNetwork
Youtube: https://youtube.com/celsiusnetwork
Alpha: https://youtube.com/celsiusalphareview
Interview Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlRHDoQ7qOo
Whitepaper: Link
Techpaper: Link
Blog: https://medium.com/@CelsiusNetwork
Github: https://github.com/celsiusnetwork

Name: Celsius Network
Symbol: CEL

TOKEN ECONOMICS

Hard Cap: $50,000,000
Total token supply: 650M CEL Tokens
Token allocation: 50% of the tokens for sale (325M CEL Tokens)
Token Distribution: Within a few weeks after the close of the crowdsale and TGE
Presale Date: open until 15-Mar-2018
Presale Price: $0.20
Presale Bonus: 35% bonus over ICO price
ICO Date: 15-Mar-2018
ICO Price: $0.30

Crowdsale whitelist: Currently open for registration.
Token distribution date: Two weeks after the TGE, Bonus Locked for 6 months.

IDEA

• Celsius Network is a platform for the crypto community to reap the benefits of the futures market and margin lending without the profits going to traditional financial institutions. Celsius Network allows its token holders to borrow cash against cryptocurrency collateral as well as earn regular interest on their deposits. They are trying to build the community which legally replaces the Wall Street with blockchain and sharing the profits amongst the members, i.e. The Celsius platform allows members to lend their funds and earn higher interest rates than they would usually get from a deposit in a bank. On the other side, borrowers pay lower interest rates than they would pay if they took out a bank loan.

"With cash, banks make rich people richer. With crypto, let's not make the same mistake."

• The team is planning to launch the Celsius Token in conjunction with the Celsius Crypto Wallet with which users can use the CEL token to take out loans immediately after the token generation event. The users who deposit coins in their Celsius wallet will be able to earn CEL tokens as a reward for lending to the network. The coins lent from member wallets will accrue interest in the form of Celsius Token (CEL) allowing users to earn up to 9% annual interest per transaction. The interest functionality is not yet available and will be rolled out in the future depending on the regulatory approvals. Their fiat loans will first start in the USA, over time expanding to other geographical fields and local currencies. They are in negotiations with a few partnerships from South Korea and Africa so we can expect the market expansion.

TOKEN UTILITY

The Celsius Token, at the moment of the TGE, will have these utilities:

• the ability to deposit your cryptocurrencies in the Celsius wallet
• the ability to pay interest on these loans at a discount
• the ability to apply for dollar loans with cryptocurrencies as collateral
• the ability to become a member of the Celsius platform and community

In the future, the CEL token will have additional utilities including:

• allowing members to lend cryptocurrencies in order to gain interest
• achieving seniority in the platform which will impact the interest rate gained

WALLET

• The Celsius Wallet will be one of the only online crypto wallets designed to allow members to use coins as collateral to get a loan in dollars, and in the future, to lend their crypto to earn interest on deposited coins (when they’re lent out). Their goal is to allow who's in need of cash to easily borrow from the Celsius platform without selling the crypto holdings.

PROTOTYPE

• The recent launch of the app on Google Play can be checked out at https://t.me/CelsiusNetwork/15926 The app is user-friendly and easy to use so it is welcoming to new users, just joining crypto, which is one of the goals that Celsius team want to accomplish. Here are a few screen-shots of the application from the Celsius Network web-page. Their iOS app is in approval and should be available in a couple of days.

COMPETITION

• Celsius Network main competitors are ETHLend, Salt, and Nexo. The main differences between the projects are best described with the Celsius Network Competitive Matrix from their Telegram chat. There are actually more than a few points in which Celsius proves to be advantageous than its competition. The borrowing rate they offer is the lowest, loan to value of crypto is 30-50%, the minimum loan amount is $100, the Celsius community sets the terms of the loans (proof of stake), they have a fully functioning app, it's easy to get a loan, and so on and so forth. All of those comparisons show why Celsius is so attractive and innovative product. They clearly provide a well-thought solution for lending and borrowing evolving from a world-class team.

• One of the most important differentiation between Celsius and Nexo is that Celsius is a lending platform while Nexo offers overdraft payments. More information on Nexo and their business model can be read on the buddhatrader blog - Link - Nexo ICO Review.
• Celsius network offers a lower borrowing rate at around 9% while Nexo charges 12% (annually). Celsius have already utilized the mobile applications and wallets, and offer an opportunity for the institutional trading to short crypto, while Nexo is currently offering none of those perks. Additionally, Celsius might be is perceived as more transparent for savvy investors since they are showing their loans publicly, and have a low barrier to entry. All in all, both projects being of high quality, Celsius offers an opportunity for all those people disappointed or left out from the Nexo canceled pre-sale and crowdsale with a solution that is in a way similar but original and thought-out.

TEAM & ADVISORS

• On their web page at https://celsius.network/team/ you can check their team consisting of developers, engineers, designers, sales, risk managers, etc. They do not have their Linkedin profiles listed so here is a quick helper.

• Alex Mashinsky - CEO - one of the inventors of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and is now working on MOIN (Money Over Internet Protocol). He has raised more than $1B and exited over $3B. All-star. Linkedin
• S. Daniel Leon - COO - Business and social entrepreneur, co-founded and led multiple companies and non-profit organizations. Linkedin
• Nuke Goldstein - CTO - software developer and entrepreneur, experience ranges from image processing and AI to IoT and Blockchain. Linkedin
• Keith Baumwald - CMO - full-stack marketer working for startups. Spent three years consulting in London before joining Celsius. Linkedin
• Ronit Dvir Bacalu - CFO - 18Y of experience in growth companices across technology, communication and real estate. Linkedin

OPINION

• The project is featuring an all-star team trying to develop the best lending and borrowing platform out there. It most definitely has a lot of room to grow if the team delivers on their roadmap promises and users adopt the network in a way it deserves to be adopted by getting the dollar loans using their crypto as a collateral or as they lend their unused coins as a credit.
• If you are a fan of passive income or just don't want to store your assets in a wallet without getting any interest, you can choose to lend your spare capital.
• The team is remarkably strong and consists of developers, engineers, designers, sales, risk managers, client services, etc. Their CEO - Alex Mashinsky is one of the inventors of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and has raised more than $1B in his startup ventures and exited over $3B. Additionally, S. Daniel Leon and Nuke Goldstein are both all-star entrepreneurs with huge startup experiences.
• Despite the fact that the project has a relatively high cap of $50M we should not forget that the financial projects of this kind use most of their funds in order to get the issuance of the loans right. That will surely be the case with Celsius since they can offer low minimum loan amount while not having to complicate as much as it is difficult to get the loan from Salt.

CONCLUSION

• With a lot of positive facts, it is indisputable that Celsius Network is a project with an opportunity to serve as a prominent contender to projects such as Salt, ETHLend, and Nexo. They are currently still under the radar but people are starting to catch up and become aware of the project innovativeness. There are many competitive products on the market in this niche, but one of them will make an impression on the crowd and have the biggest utilizations of their platform. It's up to the smartest and most diligent users to get to know which of them will it be.

For flipping: NEUTRAL

• The flipping of Celsius Network ICO cannot be determined from the project by itself. The market conditions are the element with the greatest impact on the valuation of the token at the time it hits the exchange. In case of a bear market, there is a higher possibility of a negative rating, in case of a bull market, it has a high probability to be positive.

For long-term holding: POSITIVE

• The project has an idea that has the strength to harvest the fruits of the token price increase if they manage to deliver on the promises they are offering in their roadmap. Celsius might be the project that will stand out the most. They have a capable team, excellent leadership and exceptional amount of experience in managing startups. Their tech team looks solid and sturdy, while their marketing and design team did an excellent job in designing the web page and whitepaper. All in all, they seem like a community of like-minded people working together to reach the goal to make Celsius the best P2P lending & borrowing platform out there.

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^{Celsius Network Pre-Sale Pool with 35% bonus
• Our Black Dragon Pool arranged a presale with 35% bonus for our members.}

• You can find more details on how to participate in the Celsius Network pool in our Discord (currently closed for new members) or Telegram Announcement channel - invite.

Additional resources:

^{• Social Interest: (as of 12-Mar-2018) Twitter: 2,594 Telegram: 5,742
•Gary Vaynerchuk & Alex Mashinsky Video about Voice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFLnHyCIHh0&t=17s
• The decentralization of the network
https://t.me/CelsiusNetwork/15668
• Celsius vs Salt vs EthLend
https://t.me/CelsiusNetwork/15668
• Alex Mashinsky - what will the ICO survivors look like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKj6nc0Wz5k
• Roman from Celsius - Main way interest will be earned is...
https://t.me/CelsiusNetwork/15398}

^{From the PRESS:
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/montymunford/2017/10/10/celsius-puts-heat-on-credit-card-providers-with-blockchain-based-p2p-lending-service/#3a9b33fe4be1
(Copy & Paste the Link in a New or Incognito Tab if it's not working)
BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/sadiqkhatri/banks-are-history-blockchain-will-make-finance-t-3bmzq?utm_term=.pcJPy4AVG#.fsJ49Vv1P
BanklessTimes: https://www.banklesstimes.com/2018/01/30/celsius-turning-heat-crypto-community/}

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