Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto lender Celsius, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for orchestrating a massive fraud scheme that resulted in billions in customer losses, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
At its peak, Celsius held over $25 billion in assets before freezing withdrawals in 2022 amid a broader crypto market crash. The firm filed for bankruptcy shortly after, leaving billions in customer funds locked. Mashinsky was charged with securities and commodities fraud in 2023 for misleading investors about the company’s financial health and artificially inflating the value of its token, CEL.
Prosecutors said Mashinsky spent hundreds of millions buying CEL on the open market to prop up its price, all while assuring customers their digital assets were safer than in banks.
He pleaded guilty in December and was found to have made tens of millions of dollars personally.
