Storia crypto
2022–2025: Celsius, promised yield and CEL price support
The criminal record connected misleading safety claims with risky asset use and manipulation of the platform's token.
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Withdrawals stopped before the court case
Celsius halted customer withdrawals on 12 June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy on 13 July. The Justice Department's later sentencing account describes customers with $4.7 billion in inaccessible assets when withdrawals stopped. A displayed account balance could no longer be converted into a withdrawal on demand.
Founder Alexander Mashinsky pleaded guilty in December 2024 and was sentenced to 12 years on 8 May 2025. The account described false claims about safety, profitability and reward sustainability. It also described purchases supporting CEL's price, including use of customer deposits, and approximately $48 million gained through Mashinsky's own CEL sales.
The yield and the loyalty token
Those mechanisms linked 2 risks that a user could easily evaluate separately: what the platform did with deposits, and what supported the value of its proprietary token. The public yield was a liability that somebody had to finance. The token price was not independent evidence that the lender was healthy.
Compare sources of yield, the Gemini Earn lending arrangement and FTX's related-party exposure. These cases have different facts and legal outcomes, but they make clear why an attractive interface and repeated reassurance cannot replace an account of assets, liabilities and privileged transactions.