Celsius founder Alexander Mashinsky faces a permanent ban from promoting crypto under an FTC order linked to a $4.72 billion judgment.
The former boss of one of crypto’s biggest failed lending platforms has been permanently pushed out of the business of selling crypto products.
A Manhattan federal judge signed an FTC order against Alexander Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of Celsius Network, banning him from marketing, offering or distributing any product or service that can be used to “deposit, exchange, invest, or withdraw assets.”
The order was signed by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote on April 28. It also enters a $4.72 billion monetary judgment in favor of the Federal Trade Commission, while requiring Mashinsky to pay $10 million to the agency.
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FTC Ban Reaches Basic Crypto Money Tools
The order also bars Mashinsky and people working with him from misrepresenting products or services when promoting or offering them for sale. This means Mashinsky can’t come back with a new yield app, wallet-style product or exchange-like service.
The $4.72 billion figure reflects the scale of the Celsius collapse. U.S. prosecutors said that when Celsius halted withdrawals in June 2022, hundreds of thousands of customers had about $4.7 billion in inaccessible assets on the platform.
Mashinsky must pay $10 million to the FTC, though the order says that obligation can be treated as satisfied if he pays at least that much to the U.S. Department of Justice under the forfeiture order in his criminal case. The larger judgment isn’t the same as a near-term $4.72 billion cash payment, but it keeps a massive civil liability attached to the Celsius case.
Celsius Sold Promises
Celsius was one of the biggest names in the last crypto lending boom. It offered “rewards” on deposited assets, crypto-backed loans and custody services, while marketing itself as the “safest place for your crypto,” according to prosecutors.
- At one point, Celsius offered interest rates of up to 17% on some deposits, a number that looked huge compared with normal bank savings products.
- But behind that pitch, prosecutors said Mashinsky repeatedly misrepresented Celsius’s financial health. By fall 2021, Celsius had grown into one of the world’s largest crypto platforms, holding about $25 billion in assets at its peak, according to the Justice Department.
Celsius paused withdrawals in June 2022 as the crypto space was already cracking after the TerraUSD collapse, cutting customers off from their funds just as confidence in high-yield crypto lenders was falling fast. The company then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2022, and later reported a $1.19 billion hole in its balance sheet.
Mashinsky’s civil settlement now sits on top of his criminal punishment. In May 2025, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to securities fraud and commodities fraud, and Reuters reported that his sentence also included three years of supervised release and a $48.4 million forfeiture.
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