The DOJ charged Mashinsky with securities fraud in 2023, accusing him of misrepresenting Celsius’s enterprise and funds. It additionally claimed Mashinsky artificially inflated the value of the platform’s token, CEL, by “spending a whole lot of hundreds of thousands buying it on the open market.” Mashinsky pleaded responsible to at least one rely of securities fraud and one rely of commodities fraud final December.
“Alexander Mashinsky focused retail buyers with guarantees that he would preserve their ‘digital property’ safer than a financial institution, when actually he used these property to put dangerous bets and to line his personal pockets,” US Attorney Jay Clayton mentioned within the press launch. “In the top, Mashinsky made tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} whereas his clients misplaced billions.”
