TechFlow news — On February 14, according to The Block, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, the Estonian operators of cloud hashing service HashFlare, have admitted to orchestrating a $577 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated that between 2015 and 2019, HashFlare claimed to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum cloud mining services, but its actual computing power was less than 1% of what it advertised, and it used fake web dashboards to display fabricated mining returns. The two were also involved in operating Polybius, a fraudulent cryptocurrency bank, which lured users into investment scams. As part of their plea agreement, they have agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets to compensate victims. They are scheduled to be sentenced on May 8 and face up to 20 years in prison.
