Celsius founder Alex Mashinskyhas been sentenced to 12 years for committing commodities and securities fraud at Celsius, one of the centralized crypto lenders.
Why it matters: There's a list of key miscreants in the 2022 crash of the cryptocurrency market, and Mashinsky is on there, alongside Sam Bankman-Fried and Do Kwon.
Mashinsky pled guilty to the charges.
What they're saying: "Alexander Mashinsky targeted retail investors with promises that he would keep their 'digital assets' safer than a bank, when in fact he used those assets to place risky bets and to line his own pockets," U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
Clayton served as chairman of the SEC during Trump's first term, supervising digital asset markets in Celsius' earliest days.
Catch up fast: Celsius was one of the first companies to quit honoring withdrawals, though its executives were making withdrawals ahead of the bankruptcy.
Customers did ultimately get paid back quite a bit, partly due to the good luck of the crypto market surging again last year.
