CFTC Permanently Bans Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky From Trading and CFTC-Regulated Markets

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission permanently banned Celsius founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky from trading and from CFTC-regulated markets in a final resolution of its civil case tied to the collapsed crypto lender Celsius.

“Ex-Celsius CEO Mashinsky gets U”

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The ban was recorded in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and approved by a judge on Thursday, according to the filing described by CoinDesk.

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Decrypt said the CFTC resolved its 2023 enforcement action by imposing a permanent trading ban and a permanent CFTC registration ban on Mashinsky, and noted that the consent order marked completion of the regulator’s first case against a digital asset lending platform.

AMBCrypto said the consent order entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York permanently prohibits Mashinsky from violating certain anti-fraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and bars him from trading commodity interests, entering commodity-related transactions, and controlling trading accounts.

The same AMBCrypto account added that Mashinsky pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of commodities fraud and one count of securities fraud, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025 with an order to pay a $50,000 fine and forfeit approximately $48.4 million.

Bloomingbit reported that the CFTC reached a final settlement, with Mashinsky permanently barred from all business activities and trading related to the CFTC or markets overseen by the CFTC, and said the court approved the agreement on June 18.

Bloomingbit also said the CFTC did not impose any additional monetary penalty as part of the agreement, while Decrypt described Mashinsky as having been imprisoned for 12 years after pleading guilty to counts of securities and commodities fraud.

AMBCrypto

CoinDesk quoted the CFTC’s framing of the conduct, saying Mashinsky and Celsius engaged in a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of customers by misrepresenting the safety, profitability, and regulatory compliance of Celsius’ digital asset-based finance platform.

CoinDesk further said the CFTC “permanently restrained, enjoined and prohibited” Mashinsky from any commodities activity, and that the arrangement was recorded in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Decrypt added that Celsius paused withdrawals and left customers without access to billions of dollars’ worth of deposits, and said customers ended up losing more than $5 billion.

Decrypt said Mashinsky also faced civil lawsuits from the SEC and FTC, in addition to the CFTC, with some alleging he stole around $42 million from customers, and it described a Federal Trade Commission settlement that permanently banned him from ever working in the cryptocurrency ecosystem again.

The same Decrypt account said the FTC settlement brought an initial $4.7 billion judgment down to just $10 million, though it can be lifted if the regulator finds he failed to materially disclose assets.

Decrypt also connected Mashinsky’s legal arguments to his handwritten motion to vacate his 12-year prison sentence, citing ineffective counsel and a conflict of interest due to his legal firm’s engagement with FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF.

Decrypt reported that Bankman-Fried is serving his own 25-year prison sentence for fraud convictions tied to the downfall of FTX, and said just last week he lost a bid to overturn his sentence and conviction.

AMBCrypto described the CFTC’s allegations that between 2018 and 2022 Celsius pooled customer crypto assets and deployed them into increasingly risky investment strategies while continuing to assure users that their funds were safe, and said the agency stated Celsius ultimately received approximately $20 billion in customer assets before filing for bankruptcy.