Two men sentenced for manipulating the price of the cryptocurrency HYDRO and defrauding investors.

according to the U.S. Department of Justice, two men have been sentenced for manipulating the price of the cryptocurrency HYDRO from Hydrogen Technology and defrauding investors. 32-year-old Shane Hampton, a resident of Philadelphia, was sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison, while 39-year-old Michael Kane, a resident of Miami Beach, was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.

The Department of Justice stated that this is the first federal criminal trial to recognize cryptocurrency as a security and determine that manipulating cryptocurrency prices constitutes securities fraud. Kane and Hampton used a trading bot through the South African company Moonwalkers Trading Limited to manipulate the price of HYDRO from October 2018 to April 2019, engaging in approximately $7 million of "wash trading" and over $300 million of "fake trading." They made about $2 million in profits from the manipulation. Kane pleaded guilty in November 2023, and Hampton was convicted by a federal jury in February 2024.