New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement with former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky on October 8, 2026. Under the agreement, Mashinsky must pay up to $35 million to the state and is permanently barred from trading securities or cryptocurrency.
The settlement includes a $25 million payment for damages and a $10 million monetary judgment. The final amount collected by New York may be lower, as the judgment could be offset by Mashinsky’s existing federal forfeiture obligations, which total $48,393,446.
The legal action, initiated in 2023 under the Martin Act, addressed fraud allegations involving the Celsius Earn Interest Accounts and the CEL token. The state claimed that deceptive practices misled more than 26,000 New York investors.
Celsius filed for bankruptcy on July 13, 2022, with customer losses exceeding $4.7 billion. Mashinsky previously pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025. Additional federal actions include a 2026 trading ban and a separate $10 million settlement with the FTC.
