Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky Permanently Banned from Crypto Trading After Reaching Settlement with CFTC
Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky Permanently Banned From Trading by US CFTC
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has officially resolved its case against Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky by permanently banning him from trading in markets regulated by the agency.
In a statement released on Thursday, the CFTC said a court order also permanently prevents Mashinsky from registering with the regulator, officially closing the enforcement case first filed in 2023.
According to the CFTC, Mashinsky and Celsius carried out a scheme that defrauded hundreds of thousands of customers by giving misleading information about the safety, profitability, and regulatory compliance of Celsius’ digital asset lending platform.
With this latest ruling, Mashinsky is now permanently banned from trading commodities, futures, and derivatives in the United States. Earlier this year, both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that most major cryptocurrencies are considered commodities.
The settlement also marks the conclusion of the CFTC’s first-ever case against a digital asset lending platform and closes one of the final regulatory actions still pending against Mashinsky.
In May 2025, Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to securities and commodities fraud. He admitted misleading Celsius users about the safety of the crypto lending platform, which collapsed during the major crypto market crash in 2022.
The CFTC said Celsius had received around $20 billion from customers and made risky investments in order to generate the returns promised to investors.
Mashinsky had already been permanently banned from working in the crypto and financial sectors after settling a separate case with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in April. That agreement prevents him from being involved in any service related to storing, exchanging, investing, or withdrawing assets.
Despite that, Mashinsky is still facing charges from the SEC, which filed a lawsuit in July 2023. The SEC accused him of offering unregistered securities, misleading investors about Celsius’ business operations, and manipulating the price of Celsius’ native token, CEL.
In late May, the SEC said it had entered serious settlement discussions with Mashinsky, but no final agreement has been reached yet. The court has granted regulators another 60 days to continue negotiations.
Meanwhile, on May 26, Mashinsky filed a request to overturn his 12-year prison sentence. He claimed his legal team was ineffective, evidence in the case was tainted by misconduct from authorities, and alleged former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was partly responsible for manipulating the CEL token price.
