Celsius CEO still sees Bitcoin finishing the year between $140-160K
Celsisus CEO Alex Mashinsky joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest in cryptocurrency and why he believes Bitcoin's value will more than triple to end the year.
Video transcript
ADAM SHAPIRO: We got to turn our attention to what's going on in the crypto corner because Bitcoin is trading lower right now but look, it's not far off of the $40,000 mark. But let's talk about what's going to happen in a greater context with crypto and we're going to do that with Alex Mashinsky. He is the CEO of Celsius. And the potential for crypto to be used on different platforms to pay for stuff, not necessarily a pure-play to just buy the crypto coin but to use it do you see that taking on greater relevance?
ALEX MASHINSKY: So crypto's main purpose is a store value, right? It is not an exceptional form of payment I think the dollar is the opposite, right? It's an exceptional form of payment but not very good store of value. So I think there are many, many other cryptocurrencies or digital assets that serve that purpose better. Mostly, Stablecoins and other forms of digital assets. So I don't think you want to take this pristine asset and try to use it to clean the windows or do something else with it. It is very good for one thing, store of value and that's what you should be using it for.
SEANA SMITH: Alex, we're looking at a chart here of Bitcoin right now, it's trading just below $40,000. I guess what do you think is going to be that next catalyst to get it above $40,000? We were briefly there last week, although it didn't hold for too long.
ALEX MASHINSKY: Yeah, so earlier this year I talked about it kind of resisting going below $29,000 and we've seen a big jump since. And I think we are hitting some resistance here in the 40,000 to 45,000 levels. And there is not a lot of resistance above that. So I think we're going to consolidate here and then break to new highs. I still stand by my prediction that this year we will see anywhere between $140,000 and $160,000 per Bitcoin.
ADAM SHAPIRO: I think there are a lot of people cheering what you just said. Your platform, Celsius, deals with so many people who we refer to as the unbanked. Are they going to be able to get in on this, they can via the platform can't they?
ALEX MASHINSKY: Yeah, so most of what we do is enable the average person to earn a yield on their digital assets. We have almost a million customers in 170 countries, just over $17 billion in assets in total assets and we generate yield, we pay 8.8% on Stablecoins for example. So that's 30 to 40 times more than your bank pays you and we pay 6.2% on your Bitcoin.
So what Celsius does better than anyone else is give you that yield, give you that return on your capital. And we do it in three buckets, one is again, Stablecoins, we have 12 different forms of Stablecoins, three different forms of gold. So you can now earn 5.5% gold on gold or you can venture and choose between 32 different digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and so on. Those are the unique things that Celsius does better than anyone else.
SEANA SMITH: What about the infrastructure bill because it does include new crypto regulations for revenue? I guess do you view this as a headwind or how big of a challenge could this potentially be to crypto going forward?
ALEX MASHINSKY: Look, for those of us who pay taxes and report all of our transactions nothing in that legislation is new or different. I think Treasury and some of the other departments are trying to make sure that they collect all the taxes that are due. And at Celsius, for example, you do get a 1099 at the end of the year that tells you exactly how much you earned in yield and you do have to pay taxes on that. So I don't see-- there's no impact to us and we've been following regulation, we've been doing KYC and AML services since 2017. So none of these new regulatory requirements make any difference. And I think clarity on the regulatory side is a very good thing, it's a positive.
Now I heard some people talk about mining and how it's going to impact mining. Celsius has over $200 million invested in mining. We're one of the largest miners in North America and I can tell you that this new regulation does not hamper or slow down any of our activities. We do have to report income, we're going to pay taxes on it. And we're happy to do it running a profitable business.
