The crypto winter was tough for both the crypto industry and investors.
At that time, many companies went bankrupt one after another, and one of them was the crypto lending platform Celsius, which went bankrupt in 2022.
Celsius founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky, who was investigated for his crimes at Celsius, confessed in December 2024.
He now faces a potential 20-year prison sentence.
According to Coindesk, a 20-year prison sentence was sought for Alex Mashinsky for organizing a fraud that resulted in customer losses of approximately $7 billion.
US prosecutors found Mashinsky guilty of deliberately misleading customers about the security of their deposits by manipulating the CEL token for his personal gain and asked the court to impose a 20-year prison sentence.
“Celsius took out unsecured loans, made risky trades, and secretly manipulated the price of the CEL token using customer assets, all while publicly assuring customers that their funds were safe.
Therefore, the Court should sentence Alexander Mashinsky to twenty years in prison as a just punishment for his years-long campaign of lies and profiteering that resulted in billions of dollars in losses and thousands of victimized customers.”
They also added that although Mashinsky told clients he was “HODLing” with them, on the contrary, he personally sold $48 million worth of CELs at inflated prices.
Despite the founder being charged with a hefty fine, CEL’s price has surprisingly surged by over 80% and is currently trading at $0.15. Still, the token is far from its former glory. CEL’s all-time high was $8.02 on June 4, 2021, meaning it has fallen over 98% from that level.
