Alex Mashinsky, founder of collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after admitting his role in a scheme to defraud customers and manipulate a token using customer funds.
Mashinsky pleaded guilty to securities fraud and commodities fraud in December. Federal prosecutors in New York said he lured customers with promises of high returns on digital deposits, while misleading them about Celsius’s operations and using their deposits to drive up the price of its own crypto token, CEL.
At its peak, Celsius held $25bn in customer assets. But the bank was buffeted by volatility in crypto markets in 2022, and hundreds of thousands of clients were unable to recover their funds after it halted withdrawals.