New York permanently bars Celsius founder Mashinsky in $35M fraud settlement

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.

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