Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky Permanently Banned From CFTC-Regulated Markets

Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025.

Celsius founder and former CEO Alexander Mashinsky has been permanently banned from trading in markets overseen by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) after a federal court approved a consent order resolving the regulator’s 2023 enforcement case against him.

The order, entered by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, also permanently prohibits Mashinsky from violating certain anti-fraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations and bars him from registering with the agency in the future.

Celsius Collapse Fallout

The CFTC sued Mashinsky and Celsius Network in July 2023. It had alleged that the company operated a digital asset platform where customers deposited cryptocurrencies that were pooled together and used to generate revenue. Customers were told they would receive weekly interest payments or rewards from those activities.

According to the complaint, Mashinsky and Celsius misled hundreds of thousands of customers between 2018 and at least June 2022 by making false or misleading statements about the platform’s safety, profitability, and regulatory standing.

The regulator alleged that Mashinsky repeatedly promoted Celsius through public videos, livestreams, blog posts, social media content, and the company’s website. In those communications, he reportedly portrayed Celsius as a safe place to store digital assets and compared it to a traditional banking alternative while also advertising high-yield returns for customers.

However, the CFTC claimed that Celsius took on increasingly risky investment strategies to generate the returns it had promised. These strategies allegedly included making millions of dollars in uncollateralized loans and participating in risky decentralized finance agreements that were not subject to regulation. While customers continued to be told that their assets were secure and generating rewards, the company was allegedly suffering major losses.

According to the complaint, customer funds were not as secure as Celsius had previously claimed, and the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy. The regulator said Celsius received approximately $20 billion worth of customer funds during its operations. In July 2023, the court entered a separate consent order imposing a permanent injunction against Celsius itself, which left Mashinsky as the sole remaining defendant in the CFTC’s civil case.

Mashinsky’s Sentencing

The CFTC case was separate from but related to a criminal case filed by federal prosecutors in New York on July 11, 2023, involving the same alleged actions by Mashinsky. The founder later pleaded guilty on December 3, 2024, to one count of commodities fraud and one count of securities fraud.

He was sentenced on May 8, 2025, to 12 years in prison and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. The court also required him to forfeit $48.39 million for his role in the commodities and securities fraud committed at Celsius.