New York Attorney General Letitia James has permanently barred former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky from operating in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries, securing up to $35 million from him, her office announced Friday.

The payments are conditional. Mashinsky is required to pay New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit a further $10 million in ill-gotten gains to the federal government under his plea agreement, and an additional $10 million if he does not serve his full prison sentence. The full $35 million is therefore payable only if Mashinsky falls short of either federal obligation, leaving the total New York ultimately collects tied to events still ahead in his federal case.

We're barring Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius, from the financial industry after he promised New Yorkers that his company was a secure place to invest their savings, only to leave them penniless. I won't allow scammers to prey on unsuspecting New Yorkers.

— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) October 9, 2026

Mashinsky is currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud, and has asked a court to vacate that sentence—a challenge that remains unresolved.

James first sued Mashinsky in 2023, accusing him of defrauding hundreds of thousands of investors—including more than 26,000 in New York alone—by misleading them about the safety of the crypto lending platform, which collapsed in 2022.

Her office's investigation found that Mashinsky repeatedly claimed Celsius was safer than a bank, while customers' assets were in fact being used in high-risk investment strategies whose losses he concealed.

The attorney general's office detailed the toll on individual investors: one New York resident mortgaged two properties to invest with Celsius, and a disabled veteran lost $36,000 that had taken him nearly a decade to save.\n"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.

Mashinsky's other penalties

Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in May 2025 after pleading guilty to fraud charges, a term that fell short of the 20 years prosecutors had sought. He was also ordered to forfeit more than $48 million.

Mashinsky was arrested in July 2023 and released on $40 million bail ahead of his trial.

Beyond the criminal and state cases, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has permanently banned Mashinsky from trading, and he separately agreed to a $10 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that bars him from the crypto industry. Taken together, the penalties against Mashinsky now span federal criminal, federal regulatory, and state enforcement.

Celsius creditors had received more than $3.4 billion in distributions through the company's bankruptcy proceedings as of August 2026, according to the attorney general's office, which noted that Mashinsky forfeited all of his claims to the bankruptcy proceeds.