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Oh my. Alex Mashinski, CEO of Celsius,
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getting 12 years. Got him. 12 years.
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Federal prison for fraud just pled
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guilty. We've been covering this for
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three years now after the bank that's
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not a bank that was telling everyone to
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unbank themselves, that the the banks
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are scamming you. You got to trust these
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guys. Put your crypto with them. Huddle.
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Uh they they stole your money. They had
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uh t taken on a bunch of risky loans,
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not told the customers. The CEO was
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selling the cell token off the side.
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It's a it's a long story. We have
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probably hours of content on it.
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Finally, all of our hard work, all of
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the community's hard work coming to
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fruition here. I mean, the guys going
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down, forfeiting $48 million. Absolutely
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great news in a time where yes, it can
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feel the crime. Oh, I'm not going to
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tease too much of that. That's the new
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merch, guys. It's the new I'm just going
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to tell you it feels good. It feels
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comfy. We're not finished designing yet.
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But back to what I was saying. In a time
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where things can feel, yes, very much
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like, okay, we're just letting everyone
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get away with everything. At least we
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have some old cases that were settling.
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Like this happened three years ago. Uh,
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and it it, you know, there's a little
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bit of justice here. I got to say, now I
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got to remind you guys sometimes the
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problem with the justice system is the
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good thing is you get due process,
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whatever. problem is it's so long from
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the crime to the punishment that nobody
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really cares by the time the punishment
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you have to remind people what these
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people did. So consider this kind of a
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crime rewind. I want to start doing this
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when these guys go down. We need to all
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gather around the fire the void and we
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need to all remind each what did this
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guy do again? And oh yeah, he's a real
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dirt bag. Uh because I think you get
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lost. I mean the the pieces of the story
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even while prepping for the story I had
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to go re-watch my own videos. I was like
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what? Like I even I shocked myself. I
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was like whoa that's pretty bad. So to
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start Alex Mashinsky was kind of a guy
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who was a tech entrepreneur and his big
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thing was he positioned himself as
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against the banks. Like those evil banks
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who are stealing all your money. You're
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giving them your hard-earned money.
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They're loaning it out. They're making
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all this money. Why don't you make that
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money? I'm gonna start a crypto bank
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that's not a bank and I'm going to give
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you all the yield that your bank's been
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hiding from you the whole time. That was
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the pitch basically. Banks are not your
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friend but Alex is your friend. Yes. And
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then they really encouraged people don't
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ever take your money out. Like put your
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money in, we'll make you more money, but
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don't ever take it out. In fact, they
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had a thing called hodddle mode where
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like hold on for dear life. That's like
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the crypto saying, but it would actually
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lock you from your assets in order to I
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think the idea was to prevent you from
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trading too much. But but but just
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basically it just made it harder to get
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your money out. That was the feature of
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the website. Now the whole time while
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you're hodling, Celsius is just paying
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you money to stick your funds there. So
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the question is, well, how are they
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making the money to pay you money? Well,
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it turns out they were reloing out your
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assets. So, you put your money on there
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and like a bank, they were reloing out
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your assets, but because they wanted to
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attract a ton of customers, they're one
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of these tech companies that was trying
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to blit scale, you know, red flag, by
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the way, if anyone ever tells you blit
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scale, uh, run. But anyways, they were
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trying to do that and so they made
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really high returns for people that were
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unsustainable. And so in order to try to
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not lose so much money, they were just
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bleeding money paying out these yields,
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telling everyone, "Don't withdraw your
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funds, please. We can't afford that."
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They also started to try to make more
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money by making riskier and riskier
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loans. And when some of those loans uh
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ended up failing or, you know, going the
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wrong way, Celsius didn't disclose that
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to users and instead lied to customers
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and told them, "No, no, everything's
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fine." While in fact, everything was not
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fine. They were deeply underwater. And
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by the time everyone found out, the
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company was in billions of dollars of
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debt. And by the way, at the time,
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people were starting to guess that maybe
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these risky loans that they were giving
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out weren't going to do so well. Uh
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Peter Schiff actually had this like
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viral interview with Majinski where he's
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like, "Where's the yield coming from on
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this thing? You're saying you're paying
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out, you're paying out, you're paying
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out all to attract customers, right? But
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where's the money coming from? How do
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you earn yield on Bitcoin? What do you
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do to generate income on that Bitcoin?
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happy to spend an hour with you. Yeah,
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you're trading it. You got to be taking
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tremendous amount of risk. The Bitcoin
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itself doesn't generate any yield. It
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does just like any other asset can
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generate yield. Gold. No, but what
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earnings What earnings does the Bitcoin
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generate? Gold generates 5 a half% at
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Celsius yield tokeniz. What are you
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doing to generate that? You You've got
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You must be taking tremendous risk to
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generate those returns. Of course you
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are. Okay. You're not. Of course you
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must be. Yeah, not such a good look.
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Now, of course, that wasn't all. They
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didn't just have risky loans. They also
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had their own token. They had this thing
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called the cell flywheel. Their token,
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ironically, for a company that told you
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to hodddle was called cell. If anyone
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didn't know what the co the CEO was
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doing, the c the coin was called cell.
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But anyways, they were they were uh
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secretly juicing that up with the
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company's money and selling on the side.
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It was this big disaster. In fact, at
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the same time Mashinsky was telling
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everyone that their funds were safe, not
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to withdraw. Uh him and his buddies were
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cashing out tens of millions of dollars
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from the company that was rapidly
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approaching bankruptcy. Ultimately,
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obviously, a lot of lies were made and
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now they're going down for fraud after
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they froze everyone's assets in 2022 and
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it all unraveled from there. But I think
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the worst thing, maybe the worst thing
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I've ever seen in crypto, and that's
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saying a lot, was when the CEO, Alex
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Mashinsky, his wife, sold these shirts,
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because obviously I'm I'm showing you a
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little bit. I'm teasing new merch today.
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Here's the new merch Alex Mashinsk's
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wife was selling. Okay, look.
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Coffeezilla goes through hard times. We
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sell you cool shirts. Mashinsky goes
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through hard times. This is what you
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get. A shirt that literally says
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unbankrupt
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yourself because their motto was unbank
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yourself, right? And they all these
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people, it's terrible. Millions of
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people had unbanked themselves, gone
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with Mashinsky, and then after they get
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bankrupted, the the bank that's not a
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bank goes bankrupt, they sell a shirt
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that says unbankrupt. I mean, oh, it was
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so bad. I was talking to so many people
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at the time and like this was the thing
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that they were like, "Oh, these people
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need to pay." I mean, there was so much
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like hatred about obviously uh because
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what kind of psychopathic thing do you
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do where you convince everyone, hey,
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come, I'm playing my flute, like come
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into my uh La La Land of crypto yields
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that it's going to get make you so much
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money. You scam them, you bankrupt
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yourself, and then they can't get their
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money out, and then you sell this shirt.
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I mean, just incredibly I've never seen
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anything like that before or since. I
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just It's like unbelievable. It's like
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if Bernie Maid off sold shirts after the
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the collapse that was like, you know,
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hey, like uh you figure out what a Ponzi
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scheme is, dummy. Like, like it's crazy.
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It's it's on that level of completely
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psychopathic. So, I think this really is
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a shining moment for the people who
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trusted Mashinsky, uh, who put their
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trust in him. We have interviews. I'll
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play a few at the very end here, but,
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uh, it's just absolutely incredible.
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Here's the press release, and here you
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can see what I just told you. Uh,
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Celsius's financial stability, they lied
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about it, and they rigged the price of
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Celsius's crypto token, obviously, so
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the founders could um, part of the
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reason was so the founders could cash
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out a bunch of money. In addition to the
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prison term of 12 years, Mashinsky was
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ordered to pay $48 million. Now look, I
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I I know people are going to quibble
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with this. SBF got 25 years. Uh is 12
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years enough? Is it too much? I think
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that's a lot of time. I mean, I I I do
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and I dislike the guy immensely. I think
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he will he's he's old and I think that's
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Anyway, I think it's I think it's tough
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but fair. When you defraud this many
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people, you should expect to go to jail
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for like a decade plus. I mean, the guy
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literally lost people billions of
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dollars. You can't do that and just get
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away with it. And it's good to see that
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uh the regulators who brought this case
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in 2022 were allowed to to carry it out
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amongst a very tough time in Coffeezilla
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history. Let's be honest, it's been a
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tough one. Tough year for Coffeezilla.
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We're living in a catch and releaseleas
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time. You catch the Hawka rugpool, you
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think, "Oh, this is going to cause no.
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We're not investigating. Why would we
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when people lost money, right?" Uh so we
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just It's open season for all this
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stuff. Hence the merch. But we still got
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to celebrate when we do have wins.
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Probably got to celebrate harder,
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honestly. So, in the spirit of that, I
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want to leave you with some of the
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victims who I asked, what do you think
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should happen to Alex Mashinsky? And
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here was their response. These are real
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people who lost real money with Celsius.
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What he was running is a Ponzi. I do
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believe he should face Zip jail time and
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the people that were also involved with
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it that were enabling that behavior.
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There needs to be an example set or
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we're going to see more of these
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grifters in these in this space like Sam
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Beck and Freed and and others who who
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just take advantage of people who
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believe in the technology, who believe
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in innovation. And you're not supposed
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to steal people's money, just plain and
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simple, you know. It's uh it's called
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theft. It's a Ponzi scheme. Just being
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stripped of all of your wealth like
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that. Emotional, psychological torture.
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You ruined people's lives, Alex. You
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ruined their lives, man. I've seen so
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many people who are retired. I've seen
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people who are disabled. I saw people
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who are basically in like different
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types of countries that their average
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salary might be $100 a month and they
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lost $1,000 and they don't even know how
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to feed their families. I I've seen
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people who are literally on the verge of
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being homeless, if not homeless already.
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And you see this CEO who is gloating
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about this and taking money out. I think
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without a doubt, if like the justice
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system prevails, El should be in jail.
