Jonathan Spalletta has gone on trial in Manhattan federal court over allegations that he exploited decentralized exchange Uranium Finance twice in April 2021 and obtained approximately $54.7 million in cryptocurrency. The September 28 trial moves one of the largest DeFi exploits of 2021 from years of blockchain tracing into a federal jury proceeding. Courtroom reporting confirms that jury selection, opening statements and witness testimony began Monday before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Spalletta faces one count of computer fraud and one count of money laundering and is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Prosecutors allege that the two incidents used separate smart-contract weaknesses before the proceeds were moved through multiple crypto transactions, including Tornado Cash. The computer-fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, while the money-laundering count carries a maximum of 20 years.
Prosecutors Trace Two Uranium Finance Exploits
The first incident occurred on April 8, 2021. Prosecutors allege that Spalletta repeatedly manipulated Uranium’s rewards mechanism to withdraw more tokens than he was entitled to receive, extracting approximately $1.4 million. The government further alleges that he later persuaded Uranium to let him retain about $386,000 as a purported bug bounty in exchange for returning the remainder.
The much larger incident followed on April 28. According to the indictment, Spalletta exploited an error governing withdrawals across 26 liquidity pools and obtained approximately $53.3 million in digital assets. Prosecutors say the resulting depletion left Uranium without enough funds to continue operating and caused the decentralized exchange to shut down. The allegations concern Uranium’s smart contracts rather than a compromise of the underlying blockchain itself.
Federal authorities say Spalletta then routed proceeds through a complex series of cryptocurrency transactions, including Tornado Cash. Similar fund-tracing challenges have surfaced in other exploits where stolen assets were subsequently deposited into Tornado Cash. The use of a mixer does not itself establish the underlying hacking allegation, but prosecutors are presenting the subsequent movement of funds as part of their money-laundering case.
Collectibles Become Part of the Money Trail
The government’s case extends beyond wallet movements. Prosecutors allege that proceeds were converted into physical collectibles including a $500,000 Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card, $1.51 million of sealed Alpha Booster packs, a $257,500 Pokémon booster box and a $750,000 first-edition Pokémon base set. The alleged spending trail gives prosecutors tangible purchases to connect with funds they say originated from the Uranium exploits. Authorities also identified antique Roman coins and a fragment of the Wright brothers’ aircraft that had traveled to the moon with Neil Armstrong.
Law enforcement had already seized cryptocurrency worth approximately $31 million in February 2025 under a judicially authorized warrant. That seizure should be distinguished from the approximately $54.7 million allegedly obtained across the two incidents because recovered assets, alleged proceeds and final victim losses are separate accounting categories. Federal crypto cases increasingly depend on tracing assets across wallets, bridges and mixers, as illustrated by a separate $282 million wallet compromise linked to $63 million of Tornado Cash deposits.
The trial also arrives as prosecutors continue litigating the legal treatment of privacy infrastructure itself. In a separate proceeding, federal prosecutors have sought to preserve unresolved charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, an issue covered through the government’s push for another Tornado Cash trial. Spalletta’s case is different because the mixer appears in the alleged laundering trail rather than as the underlying service being prosecuted.
The immediate milestone is the jury’s assessment of whether prosecutors can prove both the alleged unauthorized exploitation and the subsequent money-laundering conduct beyond a reasonable doubt. Until a verdict is reached, the $54.7 million theft, the attribution of the attacks to Spalletta and the alleged laundering strategy remain government allegations rather than established criminal findings.