What Was Celsius Network — and What Happened to It?
This is the old Celsius link, kept for reference — it no longer leads anywhere useful.
Celsius Network was a crypto lending platform: you deposited coins, Celsius lent them out to institutional borrowers, and it paid a share of that interest back to depositors — often advertised as up to 80% of Celsius’s earnings returned to users. This page originally promoted a $50 bonus for new users who signed up with a referral code and transferred in $400 or more.
That business model depended on Celsius safely managing the loans and collateral behind it, and it didn’t hold up. Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 13, 2022, disclosing roughly a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet and owing about $4.7 billion to users who were suddenly unable to withdraw their own deposits. Founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky was later charged with fraud; he pleaded guilty in December 2024 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025. Celsius’s mobile and web apps were shut down entirely on February 29, 2024, after the bankruptcy court approved a restructuring plan that distributed over $3 billion back to creditors and converted remaining claims into ownership of a new company, Ionic Digital, rather than Celsius itself continuing to operate.
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To be clear: this is Celsius Network, the crypto lender — not Celsius the energy-drink brand, which is an entirely unrelated company that’s still very much in business.
Where to go instead of Celsius
If what you actually want is a working exchange with a real, current sign-up bonus, Coinbase is our top live pick — one of the largest U.S. crypto exchanges, alive and operating, with a link-based referral program that pays new users $10 in Bitcoin at last check once they sign up through our Coinbase link and complete a qualifying trade. There’s no code to type, unlike Celsius’s old system. Gemini is our other current recommendation, with a bigger bonus at last check — $50 to you and $50 to your friend via our Gemini link. Both are lending-free, straightforward exchanges rather than the kind of yield-generating lending platform Celsius was, so the mechanics are different, but they’re real and working today.
We also cover a companion page for this exact topic — Celsius Referral Code Sign-Up Bonus — with more on what happened to user funds specifically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Celsius referral code 1120178002 still work?
No. Celsius Network shut down its apps in February 2024 after filing for bankruptcy in 2022. There’s no live sign-up to apply the code to.
Is this the Celsius energy drink company?
No. This page is about Celsius Network, the crypto lending platform that went bankrupt in 2022. Celsius the energy-drink brand is a separate, unrelated, still-operating company.
What happened to the CEO?
Alex Mashinsky, Celsius’s founder and former CEO, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in December 2024 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025.
What’s a safe, live alternative to Celsius?
We recommend Coinbase or Gemini — both are large, currently operating exchanges with real sign-up bonuses. See those pages for current terms.
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The Celsius offer is history.
The record lives here.
The original details are preserved above — and the intro points to what still works today.
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