Celcius founder plead guilty due to fraud charges

Celsius, a global crypto and Bitcoin mining company, has been facing a fraud case since last year and now the founder has pleaded guilty to fraud charges.

Alex Mashinsky, founder and former CEO of Celcius Network, is set to plead guilty to fraud charges, Reuters reported on December 3. The federal prosecutor accused Mashinsky of chasing customers to invest in them and unnaturally inflating the value of the company. crypto token.

To agree with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed to be sentenced to 30 years or less in prison. Therefore, his sentence is planned to be announced by the court on April 8 of next year.

“I know what I did was wrong and I want to do what I can to fix it,” he said.

He had previously been indicted on seven charges since last year, including fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation. He stated in court that he pleaded guilty to two of these seven charges, which were commodity fraud and manipulating the price of the Celcius token (CEL) in 2021.

Celcius price action

Since the launch of the token, the CEL price has increased from $0.05 to $7.4, a rapid increase of 14,700% in 2021. The increased price was recorded only that year; After he was charged, CEL saw a breakout, dropping the price below $1 until Mashinsky’s arrest in July. 13; The token price was only $0.1.

1-Year CEL price chart, 05 December 2023 – 04 December 2024 | Source: Trading Outlook

In another development in the cases, Ben Armstrong, known as BitBoy Crypto, believes that Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary was a key player in the bankruptcy of Celcius as well as FTX.