PANews reported on June 26 that according to the U.S. Department of Justice, two men were sentenced for manipulating the price of Hydrogen Technology's cryptocurrency HYDRO and defrauding investors. 32-year-old Philadelphia resident Shane Hampton was sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison, and 39-year-old Miami Beach resident Michael Kane was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.
The Department of Justice said this was the first time a cryptocurrency was deemed a security in a federal criminal trial and that manipulation of cryptocurrency prices constituted securities fraud. Kane and Hampton used trading robots through the South African company Moonwalkers Trading Limited to manipulate HYDRO prices from October 2018 to April 2019, making about $7 million in "knock trades" and more than $300 million in "false trades." They made about $2 million in profits through manipulation. Kane pleaded guilty in November 2023, and Hampton was convicted by a federal jury in February 2024.
As reported in April last year, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against five people related to the Hydrogen project, accusing them of manipulating token prices.