Mashinsky Ban: New York Secures Up To $35M From Ex-Celsius CEO

New York has barred Alex Mashinsky from the securities, commodities and crypto industries for life. Attorney General Letitia James announced the Mashinsky ban on October 9, 2026, along with a settlement worth up to $35 million. The former Celsius chief executive is already serving 12 years in federal prison, according to the attorney general's release.

The New York attorney general's October 9 announcement of the permanent Mashinsky ban and the settlement.

How the Mashinsky ban settlement works

The $35 million is conditional. Mashinsky owes New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit $10 million in ill-gotten gains to the federal government. That forfeiture sits on top of assets already given up under his plea deal. A second payment of $10 million falls due if he does not serve his full prison term, as overseen by the Bureau of Prisons.

So the headline number only materializes if he breaks the federal terms. The Mashinsky ban applies regardless, and it covers all three industries named in the release.

What the state says behind the Mashinsky ban

The attorney general sued Mashinsky in 2023. Her office says he deceived hundreds of thousands of investors, including more than 26,000 in New York, about how safe Celsius was. It says he claimed the platform was safer than a bank, although Celsius did not face the federal or state requirements banks do.

The release gives two human examples. One New York resident mortgaged two properties to invest, and a disabled veteran lost $36,000 that took nearly a decade to save.

The office also states that customer assets went into high-risk strategies and that losses were hidden from investors. Celsius lost hundreds of millions of dollars on risky investments, it adds. Mashinsky fronted the platform in interviews, at events and online, pulling in depositors. New York law also required him to register as a salesperson and as a securities and commodities dealer. He did neither, the office says.

Money already returned or collected

The release gives several figures from other proceedings. Creditors have received more than $3.4 billion in the Celsius bankruptcy as of August 2026. In the parallel federal criminal case, Mashinsky was ordered to forfeit more than $48 million. Celsius founders and executives separately paid $16.5 million to the Federal Trade Commission.

None of those sums come from the new settlement. They show how much has moved through other channels before New York's deal.

Where it sits among New York crypto actions

The office lists earlier cases to show a pattern. In April 2026 it secured more than $5 million from Uphold over a scheme run by Cred, LLC. In March 2025 Galaxy Digital settled claims that it pumped the Luna token in a $200 million deal. In June 2024 it sued NovaTechFx, accusing it of a pyramid scheme that drew over a billion dollars of crypto from more than 11,000 New Yorkers.

With the Mashinsky ban in place, James also asked crypto industry workers who saw misconduct to file a whistleblower complaint, which can be anonymous. Related TOCE coverage of enforcement and sanctions is in the report on the UK sanctions package. This article summarizes a public release and is not legal advice.