Celsius says the CEL token will not receive the same treatment as XRP at the SEC

The CEO of cryptocurrency lending agency Celsius is convinced that CEL will not have the same fate as XRP.

CEL's "registration" with the SEC

In a December 31 interview, Alex Mashinsky attributed the recent price increase of CEL to the registration of the token with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mashinsky said this will protect CEL - the native token of the Celsius lending platform - from getting involved in a similar SEC lawsuit as the securities regulator filed against Ripple for its XRP token - here the quotation in real time.

The CEL token, however, is not actually registered with the SEC; Celsius filed an exemption from having to register a security sale with the SEC that was only available to accredited investors.

This is a separate process from the SEC filings that the cryptocurrency industry has completed, such as INX's for its initial public offering and asset management firm Arca's registration of its Ethereum-based fund.

"We haven't established that the CEL token is a stock," Mashinsky said in an interview. "What we said is that since we're not sure what it is, and it's not clear why the regulations aren't clear, we're going to file it as a title." CEL went from a few cents to $ 6,50 on January 3 and has since fallen to $ 4,97 at press time.

Mass adoption

"Mass adoption by over 300.000 users worldwide is the driving factor," said Mashinsky, of CEL's price action. "Half of our community wants to receive interest for the CEL token." If users choose to get rewards in CEL, they can get better interest rates on earning and borrowing in the app.

In May 2018, Celsius raised what was then $ 50 million worth of cryptocurrencies in CEL's initial coin offering (ICO). (Financial statements filed with the UK registrar in May 2020 show proceeds of just $ 25 million from the sale; Celsius revealed that it did not convert the cryptocurrency to fiat in the same month it was raised.)

Mashinsky also made it clear that Celsius only grants collateralized loans to institutions. “From an institutional point of view we have 350 clients,” Mashinsky said. “Based on the credit ratings, we will require some of them to give us a 200% guarantee.

There are one or two institutions that have multi-billion dollar budgets that we demand less than 100% from, so they could give us 75%. If you take our $ 6 billion portfolio of assets, less than 1% of that is unsecured loans. " Mashinsky also revealed that Celsius is considering participating in the bankruptcy auction of cryptocurrency credit agency Cred, but said the company has not yet made a decision on the company.