Siphoned $1.8 Billion! HyperFund Promoter “Bitcoin Roni” Officially Pleads Guilty, Faces Up to 20 Years in Prison

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issues latest announcement: 56-year-old Miami man Rodney Burton, known as "Bitcoin Rodney," has officially pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his involvement in the $1.8 billion HyperFund cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.
The scam used DeFi mining and daily 1% passive income as bait, but after attracting funds, the investors' hard-earned money was lavishly spent on sports cars and yachts.
(Background: Taiwan’s largest crypto money laundering case — main suspect Shi Qi-ren of BiXiang Technology was released on bail of 20 million yuan, defrauding 1.27B yuan, with over 2.3 billion yuan in financial flows involved)
(Additional background: Financial Supervisory Commission amends anti-fraud laws: VASP included in cross-industry notifications, fraudulent "virtual currency" can be sold and returned to victims)

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• Fake DeFi mining to attract funds, boasting daily 1% high returns
• Funds all spent on yachts, facing up to 20 years in prison
• Multi-agency joint crackdown, mastermind still at large

The subsequent legal proceedings of the HyperFund cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, which shocked the world with a scale of up to $1.8 billion, have made a major breakthrough. According to the latest announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, 56-year-old Miami resident Rodney Burton, who is active in the community under the name "Bitcoin Rodney," has pleaded guilty in court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Fake DeFi mining to attract funds, boasting daily 1% high returns

According to prosecutors’ investigation, this carefully planned scam lasted from June 2020 to May 2024. Burton and his co-conspirators heavily promoted platforms such as HyperFund (which was renamed multiple times to HyperTech, HyperCapital, HyperVerse, and HyperNation), portraying them as legitimate and highly profitable decentralized finance (DeFi) investment projects.

The scam group made highly tempting false promises to victims: by purchasing a "membership" on the platform, they could earn a steady passive income of 0.5% to 1% daily, until the initial investment doubled or tripled. To increase credibility, the platform claimed that these high returns were entirely derived from its large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations’ substantial profits.

Funds all spent on yachts, facing up to 20 years in prison

However, investigators ruthlessly exposed this lie. In reality, HyperFund did not conduct any real cryptocurrency mining operations at all — it was a classic Ponzi scheme that used new investors’ funds to pay returns to earlier investors. Starting in 2021, as the funding chain broke down, the platform began to unilaterally block withdrawals, ultimately leaving countless victims worldwide (including several residents of Maryland, USA) with total losses estimated at $1.8 billion.

Prosecutors in the indictment sharply accused Burton not only of being the core promoter of the scam but also of using the blood, sweat, and tears of investors to indulge in personal luxury — purchasing luxury apartments, top-tier sports cars, and private yachts. Under U.S. federal law, after pleading guilty, Burton faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison solely for conspiracy to commit wire fraud; in addition, he faces multiple counts of wire fraud, up to 7 counts of money laundering, and operating an unlicensed remittance business in the superseding indictment, which could lead to even heavier sentencing.

Multi-agency joint crackdown, mastermind still at large

This major international crypto case has attracted high attention from U.S. law enforcement agencies. The case is being jointly investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) and the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Besides Burton, another core promoter, Brenda Chunga, has previously pleaded guilty; however, HyperFund co-founder Sam Lee remains at large.

The DOJ emphasizes that releasing this announcement not only reports on the progress of the case but also sends a strong warning to illegal actors in the cryptocurrency market. Investors should be highly vigilant when faced with decentralized investment platforms promising "risk-free, high passive income" to avoid falling into carefully crafted scams.