Fri May 09 09:18:47 UTC 2025: ## Former Celsius CEO Sentenced to 12 Years for Fraud
**New York, May 9, 2025** – Alexander Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency platform Celsius, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for securities fraud. Mashinsky, 50, pleaded guilty last December to charges stemming from the company’s collapse in 2022.
Celsius, at its peak in late 2021, boasted over one million clients and held more than $25 billion in assets. However, the platform’s downfall began in the spring of 2022 as cryptocurrency values plummeted. Facing massive customer withdrawals, Celsius froze over $4.7 billion in customer accounts in June 2022 before filing for bankruptcy the following month.
The indictment alleged that Celsius executives misappropriated over $4 billion in customer assets to fund company operations, make risky investments, and issue unsecured loans. Mashinsky was also accused of manipulating the price of Celsius’s own cryptocurrency, CEL, using customer funds to artificially inflate its value.
A progress report released in March indicated that 93% of the frozen assets have since been recovered and returned to customers. The Celsius collapse was one of several high-profile failures in the cryptocurrency market in 2022, including the bankruptcy of FTX.
First Piper 