New York Attorney General Letitia James announced October 9, 2026 that she secured up to $35 million from Alex Mashinsky, co-founder and former CEO of crypto lending platform Celsius Network LLC, along with a permanent ban on his participation in the securities, commodities and cryptocurrency industries.
The office sued Mashinsky in 2023, alleging he misled hundreds of thousands of investors, including more than 26,000 in New York, about Celsius’s safety so they would deposit billions of dollars in digital assets. The office says Celsius lost hundreds of millions of dollars on risky investments, and that Mashinsky deceived investors about the platform’s safety, number of users and investment strategies, and repeatedly claimed it was safer than a bank. In fact, the office says, Celsius was not subject to the strict federal or state requirements banks face.
Mashinsky is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence under a plea agreement and was ordered to forfeit more than $48 million. The office says investors and creditors have received more than $3.4 billion in the Celsius bankruptcy proceeding.