Alex did explain it, Securities Lending, BlockFi also said the same thing on an old video interview with Raoul Pal, Prime Brokering. Unfortunately, BlockFi wanted to be cute and ventured into the GBTC stuff
Celsisus is not putting on trades. You keep saying that but that's not going to come true. They lend to traders (institutions who trade)
They lend both sides, bitcoins and stable coins to institutions in return for collateral. For the big balance sheets borrowers 80% collateral, for small hedge funds over 100% collateral, so outfits like Susquehanna can sell bitcoins at Coinbase or Kraken and buy bitcoins at Binance using stable coins
Celsius on the latest video I'm watching and on their website has 350 Institutions worldwide that they lend cryptos to, they have grown quite a bit, at that video, Alex said $3.5B in crypto deposits, they are now over $21B
I remember when I first bought CEL at 20 cents, they were just at over $1B deposits and less than 100K users, that video was in December when CEL was ~$2.30 and he said it was the best performing investment at over 4000%
I have no NEXO and no CEL tokens now, but I made ~800% ROI on NEXO and over 2000% ROI on CEL
I have several 6 figures $ in stablecoins and 35 ETH, but not a single deposit on Nexo, Celsius, BlockFi or any DeFi like AAVE, so I can clearly say I have no vested interest in the space
I agree with you that yield on any of these platforms above are not worth the existential risks of them shutting down, getting hacked, or even getting shutdown by the USG in the case of CeFi, no matter how small that probability is in my opinion
I do have ~$75K of CAKE (fluctuates with the value of CAKE) that earns over $200/day that I compound daily for an APY of ~140%. I determined that as worth the risk since I don't have a job and that is our income. Incidentally, the amount of $ in CAKE I'm hodling and staking are all profits, already sold the original $ risk capital + profits due to my low entry and selling at CAKE over ~$30
I thought you came around and finally understood yields on cryptos when you posted the RV video, but you're still on your world of ponzi conspiracies on these platforms and still waiting (hoping?) for them to blow up. That's the difference between me and you, I believed in their business models (NEXO and CEL) and was rewarded massively
[EDIT: You misunderstood what the hedge fund reference that Alex was talking about. He's talking about how they have an 80/20 business model similar to hedge funds
Celsius returns 80% of the company's operating profits to investors by way of interest payments to depositors. More than 50% of the depositors want to earn in CEL, if they are outside of the US, and that gives a higher yield on deposits but that forces them to buy CEL tokens on the market every week
You'll know all of these if you studied Celsius and their published flywheel of funds operations]
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