How and Where to Buy Celsius (CEL) – Detailed Guide
- What is CEL?
- Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange
- Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money
- Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange
- Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
- Step 5: Trade CEL
- Last Step: Store CEL securely in hardware wallets
- Other useful tools for trading CEL
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Latest News for CEL
- CEL Price Prediction and Price Movement
What is CEL?
What Is Celsius (CEL)?
Celsius (CEL) is an all-in-one banking and financial services platform for cryptocurrency users.
Launched in June 2018, it offers rewards for depositing cryptocurrency, along with services such as loans and wallet-style payments.
Users of the platform receive regular payouts and interest on their holdings. Celsius’ native token, CEL, performs a variety of internal functions, including boosting user payouts if used as the payment currency.
Who Are the Founders of Celsius?
Celsius originally came into being as the product of creators Alex Mashinsky and Daniel Leon in 2017.
Mashinsky has a long-running history in the internet development sphere, having worked on the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) in the 1990s and other technologies since. Celsius is far from Mashinsky’s first corporate venture, with seven startups and 35 patents to his name, the project’s official website states.
Co-founder and COO Daniel Leon meanwhile has experience focusing on growing early-stage startups. His previous roles include being CEO of Atlis Labs, a social recommendation and discovery app which used real-time user referrals.
Celsius now has a large team of core employees, technical developers and advisors with experience in various spheres.
What Makes Celsius Unique?
Celsius aims to outperform banks at their own game by offering financial services on the kind of terms which traditional financial institutions no longer offer.
These include much higher rates of returns on savings and deposits, much easier and fairer loan requirements and automated rewards computed for each user algorithmically. Penalties and bank-style fees are also waived.
The platform also functions as a wallet via its CelPay feature, and hosts its own CEL token which users can leverage to increase payout value among other things.
As a for-profit company, Celsius takes a cut of profit margins on interest payments, still returning 80% to users themselves. The company also lends to institutional entities such as hedge funds.
Payments are ensured because loans are asset-backed, and any borrower must supply more than 100% of what they borrow in the destination currency.
Related Pages:
Read more about Electroneum here.
Read more about Stellar here.
Crypto newbie? Find the answers to all your questions with Alexandria, CoinMarketCap’s dedicated education resource.
How Many Celsius (CEL) Coins Are There in Circulation?
The native token of Celsius is CEL. It performs a number of user-related functions and is freely tradable outside the platform.
CEL has a maximum supply of 695,658,161 tokens, of which 76% are in circulation and 24% are locked according to a schedule laid out in the project’s technical literature.
CEL had an initial coin offering (ICO) in May 2018. The presale and crowdsale took 50% of the token supply, with 27% going to the treasury, 19% to the team and 2% to partners and advertisers respectively.
CEL is an ERC-20 standard token on Ethereum.
How Is the Celsius Network Secured?
Celsius uses a modified proof-of-stake algorithm for its token, while broader security procedures were outlined in a dedicated presentation in June 2020, still available on the company’s website.
As with any client-orientated wallet, the risk of theft from attacks such as SIM-swapping is present if users themselves do not have adequate protections in place such as two-factor authentication.
Where Can You Buy Celsius (CEL)?
CEL is a publicly-tradable token on major exchanges, with pairs available for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
As of October 2020, automated market makers (AMMs) held the lion’s share of trading volume, with popular pairs being for Bitcoin (BTC) and Wrapped Ether (WETH).
New to cryptocurrency? Read our easy guide to buying Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
CEL was first tradable on 18th May, 2018. It has a total supply of 695,658,160. As of right now CEL has a market capitalization of USD $261,609,085.37. The current price of CEL is $0.376 and is ranked 507 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 36.24 percent at the time of writing.
CEL has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy CEL.
Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange
You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, in this case, Bitcoin (BTC). In this article we will walk you through in details two of the most commonly-used fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Uphold.com and Coinbase. Both exchanges have their own fee policies and other features that we will go through in detail. It is recommended that you try both of them and figure out the one that suits you best.
Select Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange for details:
- UpHold
Being one of the most popular and convenient fiat-to-crypto exchanges, UpHold has the following advantages:
- Easy to buy and trade among multiple assets, more than 50 and still adding
- Currently more than 7M users worldwide
- You can apply for UpHold Debit card where you can spend the crypto assets on your account like a normal debit card! (US only but will be in the UK later)
- Easy to use mobile app where you can withdraw fund to a bank or any other altcoin exchanges easily
- No hidden fees and any other account fees
- There are limited buy/sell orders for more advanced users
- You can easily set up recurring deposits for Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) if you intend to hold cryptos long term
- USDT, which is one of the most popular USD-backed stablecoins (basically a crypto that is backed by real fiat money so they are less volatile and can be treated almost as the fiat money it's pegged with) is available, this is more convenient if the altcoin you intend to buy has only USDT trading pairs on the altcoin exchange so you don't have to go through another currency conversion while you buy the altcoin.
Type your email and click 'Next'. Make sure you provide your real name as UpHold will need it for account and identity verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn't vulnerable to hackers.
You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.
Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, UpHold is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish.
Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money
Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You may be charged higher fees depending on your credit card company and the volatile prices when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees.
Now you are all set, on the 'Transact' screen under the 'From' field, select your fiat currency, and then on the 'To' field choose Bitcoin, click preview to review your transaction and the click confirm if everything looks good... and congrats! You've just made your first crypto purchase.
Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange
Select altcoin exchanges:
- Gate.io
- BitMart
- Poloniex
But we are not done yet, since CEL is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CEL can be traded, here we will use Gate.io as our exchange. Gate.io is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.
Gate.io is an American cryptocurrency exchange that launched 2017. As the exchange is American, US-investors can of course trade here and we recommend US traders to sign up on this exchange. The exchange is available both in English and Chinese (the latter being very helpful for Chinese investors). Gate.io’s main selling factor is their wide selection of trading pairs. You can find most of the new altcoins here. Gate.io also demonstrates an impressive trading volume. It is almost every day one of the top 20 exchanges with the highest trading volume. The trading volume amounts to approx. USD 100 million on a daily basis. The top 10 trading pairs on Gate.io in terms of trading volume usually have USDT (Tether) as one part of the pair. So, to summarize the foregoing, Gate.io’s vast number of trading pairs and its extraordinary liquidity are both very impressive aspects of this exchange.
After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.
Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.
If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Gate.io and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.
Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".
On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.
After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Gate.io!
Now go back to Gate.io and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.
You should receive a confirmation notification from Gate.io once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CEL!
Step 5: Trade CEL
Go back to Gate.io, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.
In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "CEL", you should see CEL/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of CEL/BTC in the middle of the page.
Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy CEL", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy CEL". Voila! You have finally bought CEL!
But we are not done yet, since CEL is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CEL can be traded, here we will use BitMart as our exchange. BitMart is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.
BitMart is a crypto exchange from the Cayman Islands. It became available to the public in March 2018. BitMart has a truly impressive liquidity. At the time of the last update of this review (20 March 2020, right in the middle of the crisis with COVID-19), BitMart’s 24 hour trading volume was USD 1.8 billion. This amount placed BitMart on place no. 24 on Coinmarketcap’s the list of exchanges with the highest 24 hour trading volumes. Needless to say, if you start trading here, you will not have to worry about the order book being thin. Many exchanges does not allow investors from USA as customers. As far as we can tell, BitMart is not one of those exchanges. Any US-investors interested in trading here should in any event form their own opinion on any issues arising from their citizenship or residency.
After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.
Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.
If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at BitMart and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.
Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".
On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.
After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to BitMart!
Now go back to BitMart and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.
You should receive a confirmation notification from BitMart once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CEL!
Step 5: Trade CEL
Go back to BitMart, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.
In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "CEL", you should see CEL/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of CEL/BTC in the middle of the page.
Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy CEL", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy CEL". Voila! You have finally bought CEL!
But we are not done yet, since CEL is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CEL can be traded, here we will use Poloniex as our exchange. Poloniex is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.
Poloniex is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange for both experienced and amateur cryptocurrency traders. It offers a range of crypto markets, advanced trade types, as well as margin trading and crypto lending, which makes it a convenient place for traders from all walks of life. Poloniex is a good and very popular exchange that offers very low trading fees, good customer support, easy registration process, multiple cryptocurrencies, and has other amazing features. As Poloniex is a US cryptocurrency exchange, US-investors may of course trade there. But US-investors should in any event do their own independent assessment of any problems arising from their state residency. In particular, investors from the state of New York are often restricted from trading at many cryptocurrency exchanges.
After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.
Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.
If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Poloniex and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.
Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".
On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.
After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Poloniex!
Now go back to Poloniex and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.
You should receive a confirmation notification from Poloniex once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CEL!
Step 5: Trade CEL
Go back to Poloniex, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.
In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "CEL", you should see CEL/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of CEL/BTC in the middle of the page.
Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy CEL", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy CEL". Voila! You have finally bought CEL!
Apart from the exchange(s) above, there are a few popular crypto exchanges where they have decent daily trading volumes and a huge user base. This will ensure you will be able to sell your coins at any time and the fees will usually be lower. It is suggested that you also register on these exchanges since once CEL gets listed there it will attract a large amount of trading volumes from the users there, that means you will be having some great trading opportunities!
Huobi
Huobi is originally a Chinese crypto exchange. From what it seems, it has now registered in the Seychelles. This exchange is one of the six exchanges from the Seychelles. The liquidity at Huobi is impressive. The liquidity, together with its customer support that is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year and good security. If you sign up to Huobi using our link below, you will receive a series of welcome bonuses, as follows: 1. USDT 10 when you have registered and verified your profile, 2. USDT 50 when you have deposited/bought 100 USDT worth of tokens via Huobi OTC, and 3. A chance of up to USDT 60 when you have completed a minimum of 100 USDT worth of crypto-to-crypto trading. Huobi does not allow US-investors on its exchange.
OKEx
OKEx is a crypto exchange that was previously based in Hong Kong. According to info provided directly from the exchange to us, it is now based in Malta. Malta is together with Estonia and Gibraltar one of the few countries in Europe that has clear license requirements for crypto exchanges. When Malta issued license requirements for crypto exchanges, a lot of exchanges from other parts of the world actually relocated to Malta. US-investors may not trade on this exchange. So if you are a US-investor and want to trade at OKEx, you’ll have to reconsider your choice of trading venue and choose one of the other top crypto exchanges.
Last Step: Store CEL securely in hardware wallets
Ledger Nano S
- Easy to set up and friendly interface
- Can be used on desktops and laptops
- Lightweight and Portable
- Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
- Multiple languages available
- Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
- Affordable price
Ledger Nano X
- More powerful secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
- Can be used on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth integration
- Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
- Larger screen
- More storage space than Ledger Nano S
- Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
- Multiple languages available
- Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
- Affordable price
If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your CEL for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online("Hot Wallets" as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of "Cold Wallets", where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply "go online") when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it's basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.
Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.
Other useful tools for trading CEL
Encrypted Secure Connection
NordVPN
Because of the very nature of cryptocurrency – decentralised, it means that users are 100% responsible for handling their assets securely. While using hardware wallet allows you to store your cryptos in a safe place, using an encrypted VPN connection while you trade makes it harder for hackers to intercept or eavesdrop your sensitive information. Especially when you are trading on the go or in a public Wifi connection. NordVPN is one of the best paid (note: never use any free VPN services as they may sniff your data in return of free service) VPN services out there and it has been around for almost a decade. It offers military-grade encrypted connection and you can also opt-in to block malicious websites and ads with their CyberSec feature. You can choose to connect to 5000+ servers in 60+ countries base on your current location, which ensures you to always have a smooth and secure connection wherever you are. There is no bandwidth or data limits that means you can also use the service in your everyday routines such as streaming videos or downloading large files. Plus it is among the cheapest VPN services out there (only $3.49 per month).
Surfshark
Surfshark is a much cheaper alternative if you are looking for a secure VPN connection. Although it’s a relatively new company, it has already 3200+ servers distributed in 65 countries. Apart from VPN it also has some other cool features including CleanWeb™, which actively blocks ads, trackers, malware and phishing attempts while you are surfing on your browser. Currently, Surfshark does not have any device limit so you can basically use it on as many devices as you want and even share the service with your friends and family. Use the signup link below to get an 81% discount(that’s a lot!!) at $2.49/month!
Atlas VPN
IT nomads created Atlas VPN after seeing a lack of top-notch service within the free VPNs field. Atlas VPN was designed for everyone to have free access to unrestricted content without any strings attached. Atlas VPN set out to be the first trustworthy free VPN armed with top-notch technology. Furthermore, even though Atlas VPN is the new kid on the block, their blog team’s reports have been covered by well-known outlets such as Forbes, Fox News, Washington Post, TechRadar and many others. Below are some of the feature highlights:
- Strong encryption
- Tracker blocker feature blocks dangerous websites, stops third-party cookies from tracking your browsing habits and prevents behavioural advertising.
- Data Breach Monitor finds out whether your personal data is safe.
- SafeSwap servers allow you to have many rotating IP addresses by connecting to a single server
- Best prices on the VPN market (only $1.39/month!!)
- No-log policy to keep your privacy safe
- Automatic Kill Switch to block your device or apps from accessing the internet if the connection fails
- Unlimited simultaneous connections.
- P2P support
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I buy CEL with cash?
There is no direct way to buy CEL with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase BTC, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your BTC to respective AltCoin exchanges.
LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can't find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.
Are there any quick ways to buy CEL in Europe?
Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Uphold.
Are there any alternative platforms to buy CEL or Bitcoin with credit cards?
Yes. is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.
CEL Price Prediction and Price Movement
CEL is up 57.6 percent over the last three months, while its market capitalization is still considered relatively small, which implies that the price of CEL can be very volatile comparing to those with larger market cap during big market moves. However, with a stead growth over the past three months, CEL has the potential to grow further and may yield some very decent gains. Again traders should remain cautious at all time.
Please note that this analysis is purely base on CEL's historic price actions and is by no means financial advice. Traders should always do their own research and be extra careful while investing in cryptocurrencies.