Lisbon , Portugal - 4 November 2021; Alex Mashinsky, Celcius, on Centre Stage during day three of Web Summit 2021 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. (Photo By Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images)
Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto lender Celsius, will plead guilty to U.S. federal fraud charges, Reuters reported Tuesday. Mashinsky reportedly said in a court hearing that he would plead guilty to two of the seven fraud counts levied against him: commodities fraud and conspiring to manipulate the price of the firm’s CEL token.
The disgraced crypto founder’s trial was set to begin on January 28, 2025, after a motion from his lawyers to dismiss two charges was denied by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in November. “I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right,” Mashinksy was quoted saying in court Tuesday.
Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2022, one month after halting all customer withdrawals. In July 2023, Mashinsky was hit with charges over an alleged $40 million in fraudulent gains at the expense of Celsius customers. The popular crypto firm allowed users to take out loans using their digital coins and tokens as collateral, and it claimed to manage over $25 billion in assets at its peak.
But it all came tumbling down—with numerous other crypto companies—following the collapse of crypto mega project Terra in 2022 and the brutal crypto winter that followed. After Celsius went bust and filed for bankruptcy, regulators and law enforcement alleged that Mashinsky and his company lied to customers about how safe the platform was, as well as selling unregistered securities.
Mashinsky and co-defendants “falsely touted Celsius as a safe alternative to banking—even though it was anything but,” the Federal Trade Commission alleged last year. And the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Mashinsky conned the public about how well his company was doing “near its inception,” according to an indictment.
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