The co-founders of crypto mining service HashFlare, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin, have pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As part of the plea agreement, they agreed to give up all digital assets frozen by the United States. HashFlare, which they ran, defrauded users of more than $550 million between 2015 and 2019 and raised $25 million from investors in 2017 through Polybius, a fake digital bank that was never established. The two were arrested in Estonia in 2022 and extradited to the United States in May 2024. They originally faced 18 charges and eventually pleaded guilty to one. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 8, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.