Crypto lending platform, Celsius, just recently announced in a press release that it now holds more than $2.2 billion in AUM. This amount alone would constitute as 16.8% of the total amount of Total Value Locked in DeFi platforms currently, making it ranked #3 on the DeFiPulse list.

Although these comparisons might be a bit unjust considering the fact that Celsius is a centralized lending platform, it does give weight to the players in the CeFi market after we’ve seen an explosion in DeFi over the past year.

Since June, active users on the Celsius platform have increased from 108k to over 215k with the number of BTC deposits nearly doubling during that timeframe. Celsius does have its own native ERC-20 token, CEL, which is not a governance token per se, but it’s been a utility token allowing users to earn more interest when electing to earn in CEL and lower interest costs when paying back in CEL. During the month of September when DeFi tokens were experiencing a massive correction, the price of CEL popped  143% and is currently up 1278% YTD.

As we see DeFi tokens continuing to make headlines resonating with crypto believers on the ethos of decentralized finance, Celsius is proving that a section of the market values the ease and simplicity of CeFi products.