Today, CoinStation brings you the hot news from the past week from Reuters. Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of Celsius Network, the bankrupt coin lending company, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of fraud in a hearing at the federal court in Manhattan, New York on December 3, 2024.
Mashinsky, who was charged in July 2023 with seven counts including fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation, initially pleaded not guilty. However, in the latest hearing, he decided to admit to the charges of commodities fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the price of the internal token CEL, belonging to Celsius.
This event further deepens the crisis of trust within the crypto community, especially as Mashinsky is seen as one of the powerful figures in the rapidly growing coin lending sector due to the COVID pandemic.
Celsius, one of many crypto lending platforms promising attractive interest rates for depositors, collapsed in 2022 when the token price plummeted. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July of that year after a mass withdrawal from customers. After emerging from bankruptcy in January this year, Celsius pivoted to Bitcoin mining.
This event follows a series of scandals in the altcoin space, where tycoons like Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, were sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing about $8 billion from customers of the exchange.
This is a reminder of the potential risks involved in investing in the loosely regulated crypto markets. Follow CoinStation for more useful and accurate information about the world of coins.
Source: Reuters
