U.S. Justice Department rules for the first time that crypto token HYDRO is a security

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the conviction of HYDRO founder Shane Hampton and head of financial engineering Michael Kane for manipulating the price of Hydrogen Technology's HYDRO token. The law enforcement agency also said that the two men's sale of HYDRO constituted an unregistered investment contract, and the duo were sentenced to two years and eleven months and three years and nine months in prison, respectively. The investigation found that the two men hired a third-party company, Moonwalkers Trading Limited of South Africa, to use automated bots to place $7 million worth of fake trades and more than $300 million worth of fake orders into the HYDRO market. Shane Hampton, Michael Kane, and their co-conspirators used trading bots to manipulate the price of their company's cryptocurrencies, thereby defrauding investors," said Nicole Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division. This is the first time a jury in a federal criminal trial has found that cryptocurrency is a security and that manipulating cryptocurrency prices is securities fraud."