The creator and former CEO of the insolvent cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, Alex Mashinsky, was detained by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, which was observed by the whole ecosystem of digital currencies. John Deaton, an attorney for XRP investors, has publicly questioned the SEC’s selective enforcement measures, despite the fact that many people appear to be cheering the market regulator for the decision.
Deaton claimed on his official Twitter account that the SEC has dedicated significant resources to its enforcement efforts. The SEC has pursued more people in the business with noncriminal offences in comparison to Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who has a large number of allegations touching on fraud, even though he acknowledged the commission could not reasonably catch every bad actor in the Web3.0 ecosystem.
John Deaton is interested in knowing where the communication between SBF and the SEC is stored, despite the fact that Celsius Network’s collapse occurred around six months before FTX’s. Deaton continues to be one of the industry titans who has consistently criticised the SEC, and his current stance reflects that of Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who recently observed that his company was prosecuted but SBF was not.
Mashinsky and Celsius’s woes
Alex Mashinsky apparently sold a large portion of his cryptocurrency assets earlier this year, including 90,000 CEL, for 48,018 USDC, as previously reported by U.Today. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has barred the crypto lender from trading in the United States, launched an investigation in response to the SEC action.
The FTC raid came with a $4.7 billion fine, a fictitious amount that many doubt the troubled company would be able to pay. The crackdown on Celsius is another evidence that U.S. authorities are committed to fostering openness in the developing crypto sector.
