Alex Mashinsky's CEL-ebrity Career Is Officially Over: CFTC Slams the Door Shut 🚪

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has closed its civil enforcement case against Celsius founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky with a court consent order that permanently bans him from trading commodity interests, entering commodity-related transactions, and controlling trading accounts. The order, entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, also permanently bars Mashinsky from registering with the CFTC in any capacity and from acting as a principal, employee, officer, or agent of any entity registered with the regulator. Under the settlement, Mashinsky admitted to violating Section 6(c)(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act and related CFTC anti-fraud regulations.

The CFTC said the injunction resolves the final outstanding claims against Mashinsky in its July 2023 lawsuit, which accused Mashinsky and Celsius of misleading customers about the safety, profitability, and regulatory status of the company's crypto lending platform. "Mashinsky and Celsius engaged in a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of customers by mispresenting the safety, profitability, and regulatory compliance of Celsius' digital asset-based finance platform," the regulator said. The agency alleged that between 2018 and 2022, the defendants misrepresented the safety of customer deposits while promoting the platform as a secure alternative to traditional banking. The CFTC said Celsius pooled customer crypto assets, deployed them into increasingly risky investment strategies, and ultimately received approximately $20 billion in customer assets before filing for bankruptcy.

Mashinsky pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of commodities fraud and one count of securities fraud in a parallel criminal case. He was sentenced in May 2025 to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine, along with the forfeiture of approximately $48.4 million. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission reached a separate settlement with Mashinsky that permanently barred him from working in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and reduced an initial $4.7 billion judgment to $10 million, though that figure can be lifted if the regulator finds he failed to materially disclose assets.

On May 26, Mashinsky filed a handwritten motion to vacate his 12-year criminal sentence, citing ineffective counsel and a conflict of interest stemming from his legal firm's engagement with FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF. Mashinsky claims SBF manipulated the price of Celsius's native token, CEL, and harmed the firm and its customers. A court on Saturday ordered prosecutors to respond to Mashinsky's request by mid-August. The SEC told a federal court in late May that it has "engaged in substantive settlement discussions" with Mashinsky over its July 2023 charges, which include an unregistered securities offering, misrepresentations about Celsius's business and safety, and manipulation of the CEL token, with the court granting a 60-day extension to continue those talks.