The DOJ charged Mashinsky with securities fraud in 2023, accusing him of misrepresenting Celsius’s business and finances. It also claimed Mashinsky artificially inflated the price of the platform’s token, CEL, by “spending hundreds of millions purchasing it on the open market.” Mashinsky pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of commodities fraud last December.

“Alexander Mashinsky targeted retail investors with promises that he would keep their ‘digital assets’ safer than a bank, when in fact he used those assets to place risky bets and to line his own pockets,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in the press release. “In the end, Mashinsky made tens of millions of dollars while his customers lost billions.”