Celcius founder plead guilty due to fraud charges

Celcius, a global crypto and Bitcoin mining company has faced a fraud case since last year. Now, the founder pleaded guilty and agreed to be jailed for 30 years.

Alex Mashinsky, the founder and ex-CEO of Celcius Network, is set to plead guilty to fraud charges, Reuters reported on Dec. 03. The federal prosecutor accused Mashinsky of pursuing customers to invest in them and unnaturally inflating the value of the company on the crypto token.

In order to deal with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed to be jailed in prison for 30 years or less. Therefore, his sentence is set to be announced by the court later next year on Apr. 08.

“I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right,” he said.

Previously, he was counted for seven charges, including fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation since last year. In court, he stated that he pleaded guilty to two out of those seven charges, which were commodity fraud and manipulating the Celcius token (CEL) price back in 2021.

Celcius price movement

Since the token was released, the CEL price has seen a meteoric increase of 14,700% from $0.05 to $7.4 in 2021. The surged price was only recorded in that year; after being accused, CEL saw an outflow and made the price go back to under $1 until Mashinsky’s arrest in July. 13; the token price was only $0.1.

5-Year CEL price chart, December 05, 2020 – December 04, 2024 | Source: Trading View

Another development of the cases, Ben Armstrong, known as BitBoy Crypto, believes that Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary was a key player in Celcius’s bankruptcy, as well as the FTX.