The founder of collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network, Alex Mashinsky, has been jailed for 12 years after admitting in December to have misled investors and manipulated the price of tokens.

As reported by the FT, Mashinsky was accused of giving false promises of high return to customers in return for their investment, and of having used their funds to drive up the price of CEL, the lender’s own crypto token.

According to the report, hundreds of thousands of clients were unable to withdraw their funds from the bank after Celsius ran into financial troubles in 2022.

In 2023, US authorities froze Mashinsky’s bank accounts after his indictment. He also agreed to forfeit $48m which he is believed to have made from the sale of CEL before it crashed.

American Bitcoin on Nasdaq

But it’s good news for another crypto exchange, as American Bitcoin plans to list its new venture on Nasdaq, the FT has reported.

According to the paper, the crypto miner is already backed by President Donald Trump’s son and wants to exploit the current positive environment around crypto investments.

The report also mentions a number of other recent investment moves around crypto, including BTC Inc striking a deal with KindlyMD “to raise $710m in equity and convertible debt to buy bitcoin for its corporate treasury.”

According to the FT, an overall positive atmosphere around crypto, President Trump’s personal and family involvement and investment in the industry, as well as a more lenient approach from US regulators towards crypto firms, are the reasons why traditional markets are increasingly looking into the digital assets industry.

In recent weeks, the likes of bitcoin have once again seen hikes in value after touching lows in early April due to fears around Trump’s tariff policies, the report says.

Coinbase to buy Deribit

In another major investment move last week, Coinbase announced it had “entered into an agreement to acquire Deribit, the world’s leading crypto options exchange with approximately $30 billion of current open interest.”

The crypto giant said: “This strategic acquisition significantly advances Coinbase’s derivatives business, establishing us as the premier global platform for crypto derivatives.”

Coinbase said it was excited about the deal for a number of reasons, including:

• creating the most comprehensive institutional derivatives platform;
• market leadership and immediate scale;
• durable, diversified revenues and enhanced profitability;
• accelerating global derivatives strategy.

Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers said the firm was excited to join forces with Coinbase “to power a new era in global crypto derivatives.”

Coinbase cyberattack

There was also some bad news for Coinbase last week, as the cryptocurrency firm announced it had been the victim of a cyber attack from hackers.

In a blog post, the crypto exchange said: “Cyber criminals bribed and recruited a group of rogue overseas support agents to steal Coinbase customer data to facilitate social engineering attacks.”

The firm assured customers that “No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed and Coinbase Prime accounts are untouched.”

Coinbase has also said it will not pay the $20m ransom that the hackers demanded, but will instead use that amount as a reward for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the attackers.

The BBC has reported that the attack could cost Coinbase in the region of $400m, and that it has already led to its share price falling by 4.1%.

Trump family’s crypto business

The Wall Street Journal has published an opinion piece headlined The Trump Family Crypto Business, looking into the various aspects of the President and his family’s involvement in the digital assets market.

The author believes that the current close ties between the Trumps and the crypto industry could cause trouble for the President further down the line.

According to the article, certain developments such as the President’s planned dinner with top investors in his memecoin “raises the appearance of a conflict of interest in selling access to the President.”

SEC’s crypto roundtable

Elsewhere, the US SEC’s crypto task force held its fourth crypto roundtable on 12 May, under the headline Tokenization: Moving Assets Onchain: Where TradFi and DeFi Meet.

According to GRIP’s senior reporter in New York, Vlada Gurvich, the latest session “focused on the growing convergence between traditional financial assets and decentralized infrastructure.”

Vlada has written a detailed story, explaining the background to these sessions, and the details of the latest meeting.

UK’s crypto regulation

We previously reported on the UK’s draft legislation, which promised to foster innovation in the sector and, at the same time, ensure adequate customer protection.

We have now backed that up with a separate comprehensive article which breaks down and explains the minor details of The draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities and Miscellaneous Provisions) (Cryptoassets) Order 2025.