破产的加密货币贷款机构摄氏度网络创始人亚历克斯·马辛斯基 (Alex Mashinsky) 承认欺诈罪

加密货币借贷公司摄氏度网络 (Celsius Network) 的创始人兼前首席执行官亚历克斯·马辛斯基 (Alex Mashinsky) 在美国承认两项欺诈罪。

Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of fraud in the United States, admitting he misled customers and manipulated the price of his company’s crypto token.

加密货币贷款公司摄氏度网络 (Celsius Network) 的创始人兼前首席执行官亚历克斯·马辛斯基 (Alex Mashinsky) 周二承认在美国犯下两项欺诈罪，承认他误导客户并操纵公司加密代币的价格。

Mashinsky, 59, was initially indicted on July 13, 2023, on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation charges. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said he misled Celsius customers to persuade them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of the company’s proprietary crypto token. He pleaded not guilty later that day.

59 岁的马辛斯基最初于 2023 年 7 月 13 日被指控犯有七项欺诈、共谋和市场操纵罪名。曼哈顿联邦检察官表示，他误导了摄氏度客户以说服他们投资，并人为抬高了该公司专有加密代币的价值。当天晚些时候，他不认罪。

During a hearing before US District Judge John Koeltl on Tuesday, Mashinsky pleaded guilty to two out of the seven counts he was charged with - commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of CEL, Celsius’s in-house token.

在周二美国地区法官约翰·科尔特尔 (John Koeltl) 的听证会上，马辛斯基承认了他被指控的七项罪名中的两项——商品欺诈和操纵 CEL（Celsius 内部代币）价格的欺诈计划。

In court, Mashinsky admitted to giving Celsius customers “false comfort” by giving an interview in 2021 in which he said Celsius had received approval from regulators for its “Earn” programme, which it had not. The Earn programme allowed users to deposit cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether and receive weekly interest payments, offering as much as 18 percent annually.

马辛斯基在法庭上承认，他在 2021 年接受采访时向摄氏度的客户提供了“虚假的安慰”，他在采访中表示，摄氏度的“Earn”计划已获得监管机构的批准，但实际上并未获得监管机构的批准。 Earn 计划允许用户存入比特币、以太坊和 Tether 等加密货币，并每周收到利息，每年利息高达 18%。

He said he also failed to disclose that he had been selling his holdings of CEL.

他表示，他也没有透露自己一直在出售所持光大控股的股份。

“I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right,” Mashinsky said.

马辛斯基说：“我知道我做错了，我想尽我所能纠正错误。”

As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed not to appeal any sentence of 30 years or less – the maximum he faces for the two counts.

作为与检察官达成的认罪协议的一部分，马辛斯基同意不对任何 30 年或以下的刑期提出上诉——这是他因两项罪名面临的最高刑期。

Mashinsky was one of several crypto executives to be charged with fraud after a slump in crypto prices in 2022 caused a number of companies, including the now-bankrupt exchange FTX, to collapse.

2022 年加密货币价格暴跌导致包括现已破产的交易所 FTX 在内的多家公司倒闭，Mashinsky 是被指控欺诈的几名加密货币高管之一。

Prices for digital assets like Bitcoin have since surged, in part due to optimism about US President-elect Donald Trump’s expected friendly policies towards cryptocurrency.

此后，比特币等数字资产的价格飙升，部分原因是人们对美国当选总统唐纳德·特朗普预期对加密货币的友好政策持乐观态度。

Founded in 2017, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US – which allows a business to continue operating while it works on a plan to repay its creditors – in July 2022 after customers rushed to withdraw deposits as crypto prices fell. Many were initially unable to access their funds. The company exited bankruptcy on January 31, and has pivoted to Bitcoin mining.

成立于2017年的Celsius于2022年7月在美国根据《破产法》第11章申请了破产保护，该保护允许企业在制定偿还债权人的计划的同时继续运营。由于加密货币价格下跌，客户纷纷提取存款。许多人最初无法获得资金。该公司于 1 月 31 日摆脱破产，并转向比特币挖矿。

Crypto lenders such as Celsius grew rapidly as crypto prices surged during the COVID pandemic. They promised easy loan access and eye-popping interest rates to depositors, then lent out tokens to institutional investors, hoping to profit from the difference.

随着新冠疫情期间加密货币价格飙升，Celsius 等加密货币贷款机构迅速发展。他们向储户承诺提供便捷的贷款和令人瞠目结舌的利率，然后将代币借给机构投资者，希望从差价中获利。

Celsius was among the first in a series of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency sector in 2022 as token prices cratered amid rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation. It filed for bankruptcy shortly after Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and rival crypto lender Voyager Digital did so.

由于利率上升和通胀居高不下，代币价格暴跌，Celsius 是 2022 年加密货币领域一系列破产的首批破产者之一。在新加坡加密货币对冲基金三箭资本 (Three Arrows Capital) 和竞争对手加密货币贷款机构 Voyager Digital 申请破产后不久，该公司申请破产。

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Mashinsky and Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, of manipulating the market for the company’s crypto token. Cohen-Pavon pleaded guilty in September 2023 and agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation.

曼哈顿的联邦检察官指控马辛斯基和摄氏度的前首席营收官罗尼·科恩-帕文操纵该公司的加密代币市场。科恩-帕文于 2023 年 9 月认罪，并同意配合检察官调查。

Prosecutors have said Mashinsky also personally reaped approximately $42m in proceeds from selling his holdings of the CEL token.

检察官表示，马辛斯基个人还通过出售其持有的 CEL 代币获得了约 4200 万美元的收益。

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was convicted of stealing roughly $8bn from the exchange’s customers in November 2023 and sentenced in March to 25 years in prison.

FTX 创始人 Sam Bankman-Fried 因 2023 年 11 月从该交易所客户窃取约 80 亿美元而被定罪，并于 3 月被判处 25 年监禁。