Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky has been permanently barred from the cryptocurrency, securities and commodities industries under a settlement with New York Attorney General Letitia James that includes up to $35 million in conditional payments.
The New York agreement, announced Friday, settles a 2023 civil lawsuit accusing Mashinsky of misleading hundreds of thousands of investors about the safety of Celsius before its collapse in 2022.
Under the settlement, Mashinsky must pay New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit an additional $10 million in ill-gotten gains to the federal government beyond assets already forfeited, and another $10 million if he does not serve his full prison sentence.
Mashinsky is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence for fraud and was separately ordered to forfeit more than $48 million. The federal sentence stems from his December 2024 guilty plea to securities and commodities fraud.
“Alex Mashinsky promised New Yorkers that his company was a secure place to invest their hard-earned savings, only to leave them penniless when his risky investments collapsed,” James said in Friday’s announcement.
Related: S&P Global brings risk assessments to growing crypto lending vault sector
Celsius promised high yields before collapse
According to the 2023 lawsuit, Mashinsky promoted Celsius as a safer alternative to banks, offering yields as high as 17% while allegedly concealing risky investments and mounting losses.
By early 2022, Celsius had attracted roughly $20 billion in digital assets, but struggled to generate enough revenue to sustain its promised returns, prompting increasingly risky investments, according to the CFTC.
CFTC’s July 2023 fraud charges against Alex Mashinsky and Celsius Network. Source: CFTC
Celsius froze customer withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy the following month, disclosing a shortfall of more than $1 billion between its assets and liabilities.
As of August 2026, more than $3.4 billion had been distributed to Celsius creditors through the bankruptcy proceedings, according to the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Related: Netflix drops trailer for series based on FTX’s SBF and Caroline Ellison
Previous federal settlements and legal challenges
The New York agreement follows separate settlements with federal regulators earlier this year. In June, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) permanently barred Mashinsky from trading and registering with the agency. An April settlement with the Federal Trade Commission had already barred him from working in crypto and finance and required a $10 million payment, along with a largely suspended $4.72 billion judgment.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also reached an agreement in principle with Mashinsky in September to settle its separate civil lawsuit, which a federal judge dismissed without prejudice on Sept. 29 pending finalization of the settlement.
Since May, Mashinsky has been seeking to vacate his federal conviction and sentence, representing himself in the proceedings. Federal prosecutors opposed his motion in August, calling his arguments “without merit.”
A judge denied his request for discovery, and an Oct. 5 order left that decision unchanged. Mashinsky has until Dec. 11 to respond to the government’s opposition to his petition.
Magazine: Crypto lending rises again… but have they solved the risks?
