Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky has been hit with another major penalty for his role in the collapse of the cryptocurrency lending platform. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has permanently banned him from trading markets regulated by the CFTC, adding to a growing list of restrictions on his activities.
Mashinsky was already serving a 12-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to counts of securities and commodities fraud related to Celsius's failure. The platform paused withdrawals, leaving customers without access to billions of dollars' worth of deposits, and ultimately filed for bankruptcy.
The CFTC's consent order also imposes a permanent registration ban on Mashinsky, marking the completion of its first case against a digital asset lending platform. This move comes after Mashinsky was previously banned from working in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which brought an initial $4.7 billion judgment down to just $10 million.