New York Attorney General Letitia James has secured a lifetime ban from the financial industry and payments of up to $35 million from former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky. The state attorney general's office announced it on Friday, Oct. 9. Mashinsky pays only under certain conditions tied to his federal sentence.
Terms of the New York settlement
The deal has two payments, and both are conditional. Mashinsky owes the state $25 million if he does not forfeit a further $10 million in ill-gotten gains to the federal government under his plea agreement. He owes another $10 million if he does not serve his full prison term.
Together that comes to as much as $35 million. The ban on working in finance has no end date, and Mashinsky himself has asked a court to vacate his 12-year sentence.
What the attorney general alleged
James sued in 2023. Her office says Mashinsky misled hundreds of thousands of investors, including more than 26,000 New Yorkers, about the safety of their Celsius deposits. He repeatedly called the platform safer than a bank, while customer assets went into risky strategies and the losses were hidden.
The office gave examples of losses. One state resident mortgaged two properties to put money into Celsius, and a disabled veteran lost $36,000 that took nearly a decade to save.
"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."
Letitia James, New York Attorney General, statement of Oct. 9, 2026
Other penalties against Mashinsky
In May 2025 a federal court sentenced him to 12 years after he pleaded guilty to securities and commodities fraud. Prosecutors had asked for 20 years. The court also ordered him to forfeit more than $48 million.
- In June the CFTC permanently barred him from commodities activity.
- He agreed a $10 million settlement with the FTC that shuts him out of the crypto industry.
- Mashinsky gave up all claims to proceeds from the Celsius bankruptcy.
The Celsius bankruptcy and creditor payouts
Celsius froze withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for bankruptcy a month later. According to the attorney general's office, customers and creditors had received more than $3.4 billion as of August. The company planned to distribute roughly $3 billion in crypto and cash when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2024, with payouts running through Coinbase and PayPal.
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