HYDRO Founders Incarcerated
The founders of Hydrogen Technology, the company behind the HYDRO token, have been imprisoned for manipulating the cryptocurrency’s price and conspiring to defraud investors. Shane Hampton, the Head of Financial Engineering, was sentenced to 2 years and 11 months, while CEO Michael Kane received a sentence of 3 years and 9 months.
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The founders of Hydrogen Technology, the company behind the HYDRO token, have been imprisoned for manipulating the cryptocurrency's price and conspiring to defraud investors. Shane Hampton, the Head of Financial Engineering, was sentenced to 2 years and 11 months, while CEO Michael Kane received a sentence of 3 years and 9 months.
To artificially raise the price of HYDRO, they hired Moonwalkers Trading, a firm that flooded the market with fake buy orders from 2018 to 2019. Through this scheme, the convicts managed to earn at least $2 million from actual token sales.
In this case, for the first time, a jury in a federal criminal trial found that a cryptocurrency was a security and that manipulating cryptocurrency prices was securities fraud,
stated Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
The jury unanimously classified HYDRO as an investment contract. They also reduced the charges to two counts, even though the criminals had admitted guilt on four counts in November 2023. Other participants in the scheme, Andrew Chorlian and Tyler Ostern, have also been sentenced previously.
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