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This Crypto King Faces 20 Years in the Slammer—But His Token Throws a 70% Party!

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Gather round, dear reader, for a whizz-popping tale of high hopes, hoodwinks, and jailhouse blues! Alex Mashinsky, the head honcho of Celsius, now stares down a sentence longer than most children’s stories, with the Department of Justice theatrically waving twenty years in the clinker before his nose. What did our protagonist do? Why, he embarked on the grand old tradition of telling porky pies while pocketing hands full of other people’s pennies!

Prosecutors, those terribly serious sorts, insist on making young Mashinsky the star example of how not to play the crypto game—unless, of course, orange jumpsuits are your fashion choice.

While Mashinsky’s Toasty, the CEL Token’s Getting Roasty—Up 70%!

The DoJ, being the chief party pooper here, filed a delightfully dry sentencing memo on Monday, April 28, basically shouting from the rooftops, “20 years for Alex, if you please!” While your average villain might be sobbing into their soup, Mashinsky’s reputation seems to have been thrown in with several tons of dirty laundry—$7 billion’s worth of customers’ hard-earned treasures spun out into the cosmic drain.

As for CEL tokens, well, they’re acting more like fizzy lifting drinks than anchors, rocketing upwards by over 70%. According to CoinGecko (who are definitely not a species of rare lizards), CEL traded at a plucky $0.1507 at last glance. Remember kids, in crypto land, good news is bad news and bad news is—rocket fuel! 🚀

This harsh request arrived five months after Mashinsky’s rather sheepish “yes, I did it,” to fraud charges that included taking the CEL token out for the old pump-and-dump waltz, and skipping a January trial. The inventory of creative chaos included a medley of commodity fraud and “guess the real price” games, which eventually toppled the Celsius empire.

Yet, despite the guilty plea, Mashinsky reportedly won’t be taking any blame soon—preferring, it seems, to point fingers like a confused octopus: politicians, markets, even the victims, all rubbed the lamp to release this crypto genie, apparently! 🐙✨

“Mashinsky’s crimes were not the product of negligence, naivete, or bad luck. They were the result of deliberate, calculated decisions to lie, deceive, and steal in pursuit of personal fortune,” snorted the DoJ, most certainly not amused.

The plot thickens back in July 2023: the SEC poked its nose in as well, wagging its finger at Celsius and Mashinsky for:

  • Describing their entire business as if it was made of rainbows and unicorns (it was not).
  • Pretending everyone was getting richer than Willy Wonka (spoiler: they were not).
  • Swearing blind that everyone’s coins were as safe as chocolate in a locked factory (guess again).
  • Giving the CEL token more massages and manipulation than a championship sumo wrestler.

Not wanting to miss out, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and every agency this side of Nantucket filed similar complaints. If lawsuits were hot potatoes, Mashinsky would be running a bakery by now. 🥔🔥

“SEC, DOJ, CFTC, and FTC all sued/charged Celsius and Mashinsky in the past hour. Rough day,” dryly observed db, with probably the most understated tweet of the year.

Meanwhile, in true Roald Dahl style, let’s not forget: Mashinsky, clever fox that he is, supposedly withdrew $10 million right before Celsius’ coffers went kaboom! The judge put the kibosh on any escape by freezing his assets and gave a polite but firm “no thanks” to the idea of dismissing those pesky fraud charges.

On a slightly cheerier note (for everyone not named Alex), Celsius hustled to make events less disastrous for bamboozled investors. First, they unstaked a pile of Ethereum, promising creditors:

“The significant unstaking activity in the next few days will unlock ETH to ensure timely distributions to creditors,” they chirped online—never mind that most creditors were already having heart palpitations.

Now, a juicy second payout approaches: $127 million in Bitcoin and US dollars, doled out to creditors whose nerves have not yet snapped.

For those still following the circus, Mashinsky’s day in court is Thursday, May 8, at which point he may discover if he’s taking a 20-year nap behind bars. Notably, if the judge goes with the DoJ’s recommendation, our hero’s fate will be less than FTX’s famous Sam Bankman-Fried—who scored a whopping 25 years. Small mercies? Maybe. But in the Land of Crypto, even the losers end up with headlines!

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2025-04-29 14:54

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