SEC Charges Celsius Network Limited and Founder Alex Mashinsky with Fraud and Unregistered Offer and Sale of Securities

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Celsius Network Limited (Celsius) and its founder and former CEO, Alex Mashinsky, for violating registration and anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws, including by failing to register the offers and sales of Celsius’s crypto lending product, the Earn Interest Program; making false and misleading statements to investors of the Earn Interest Program and Celsius’s own crypto asset security, CEL; and engaging in market manipulation as it relates to CEL. Unregistered Offering According to the SEC’s complaint, from almost the inception of Celsius in 2018 to the point the company effectively halted its platform on June 12, 2022, Celsius offered to investors the Earn Interest Program, by which investors tendered their crypto assets to Celsius in exchange for interest payments.