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- Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky pleads guilty to fraud charges, including CEL token market manipulation, avoiding a January trial.
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Mashinsky faces up to 20 years in prison for commodities fraud and price manipulation schemes linked to Celsius’s collapse.
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Celsius creditors will receive $127M in payouts, while the company pursues legal action against Tether over $2B in Bitcoin collateral.
Alex Mashinsky’s guilty plea reveals the dark underbelly of crypto trading practices, as Celsius creditors eye $127M in potential payouts amidst ongoing lawsuits.
Celsius CEO Pleads Guilty to Manipulating CEL’s Market Value
The former Celsius CEO is accused of manipulating the price of the network’s CEL token to attract investors while personally profiting from $42 million.
According to Bloomberg reports, Mashinsky confirmed his intention to plead guilty to two counts: commodities fraud and a scheme to artificially boost the value of CEL at a Manhattan court hearing on Tuesday. The most severe charge could lead to a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Celsius bankruptcy was among the earliest warnings of the crypto winter, a downturn that erased billions in market value. Celsius’s collapse followed a string of high-profile failures, including the implosion of FTX under Sam Bankman-Fried.
“Alex Mashinsky, ex-Celsius CEO, just got 30 years in prison. I called him out as a fraud for years—he even blocked me and tried to sue me twice. Celsius was a blatant Ponzi scheme,” financial analyst Jacob King wrote on X (formerly Twitter).