New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Friday a settlement with Alex Mashinsky, a co-founder and former CEO of crypto lender Celsius Network, that permanently bars him from the securities, commodities and cryptocurrency industries. Her office said the deal secures up to $35 million.

The money is conditional. Mashinsky owes New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit $10 million in gains to the federal government, on top of assets he has already forfeited. He owes another $10 million if he does not serve his full prison sentence.

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The Federal Case and Bankruptcy

Mashinsky is serving a 12-year sentence in a parallel federal criminal case. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said he pleaded guilty on Dec. 3, 2024, to a commodities fraud charge and a securities fraud charge. He was sentenced on May 8, 2025, and ordered to forfeit $48,393,446. The CFTC also announced on June 18 that a consent order resolved its own case against him, with a permanent injunction and permanent trading and registration bans.

The attorney general’s office said more than $3.4 billion had been distributed to creditors in the Celsius bankruptcy as of August 2026.

What New York Alleged

James sued Mashinsky in January 2023, alleging he misled hundreds of thousands of people about Celsius’ safety, more than 26,000 of them in New York. The attorney general’s office said its investigation found he repeatedly described the platform as safer than a bank, even though Celsius did not face bank-level federal or state requirements. It also said investor assets went into high-risk strategies, many of which produced losses he concealed, and that he failed to register as a salesperson and as a dealer under New York law.

“Alex Mashinsky promised New Yorkers that his company was a secure place to invest their hard-earned savings, only to leave them penniless when his risky investments collapsed,” James said in the release. “I will not allow scammers to use cryptocurrencies to prey on unsuspecting New Yorkers.”

The office also encouraged crypto industry workers who have seen misconduct to file whistleblower complaints, which can be made anonymously.

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