According to PANews, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that two men were sentenced for manipulating the price of Hydrogen Technology's cryptocurrency HYDRO and defrauding investors. Shane Hampton, a 32-year-old Philadelphia resident, was sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison, and Michael Kane, a 39-year-old Miami Beach resident, was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. This is the first time in a federal criminal trial that a cryptocurrency has been identified as a security and that manipulation of cryptocurrency prices constitutes securities fraud. Kane and Hampton used trading robots through the South African company Moonwalkers Trading Limited to manipulate the price of HYDRO from October 2018 to April 2019, conducting approximately $7 million in "counter-trading" and more than $300 million in "false trading." They made approximately $2 million in profits through manipulation. Kane pleaded guilty in November 2023, and Hampton was convicted by a federal jury in February 2024. Last April, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against five people related to the Hydrogen project, accusing them of participating in manipulating token prices.