Celsius Is Latest Decentralized Finance Crisis to Rock Crypto

Celsius Network amassed more than $20 billion in assets with a pitch that seemed to defy the basic physics of finance. Deposit crypto coins and earn interest rates as high as 18%, tens or hundreds of times the rates on traditional savings accounts. “When you look at what the banks pay, you say to yourself, ‘Somebody is lying. Either the bank is lying or Celsius is lying,’” co-founder Alex Mashinsky said in an interview last year.

More than a million people entrusted their savings to Celsius, according to the company. Even as skepticism mounted over whether its interest rates ...