According to US prosecutors, a man from Maryland stole tens of millions of dollars from the DeFi platform Uranium Finance and then spent a lot of it on rare collectibles like Pokémon cards and things related to the moon. The Southern District of New York unsealed a court document that names 36‑year‑old Jonathan Spalletta as the hacker who stole over $54 million from the Binance Smart Chain protocol in 2021.
Spalletta is accused of wire fraud, computer fraud, and money laundering. Authorities say he could face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty. US investigators built the case on a 2025 operation in which they seized about $31 million in cryptocurrency linked to the same attack.
How the DeFi Exploit Worked
Uranium Finance ran an automated market maker for token swaps and yield farming before the attack. Prosecutors say Spalletta abused smart contract bugs in April 2021, first manipulating reward logic and then exploiting a separate arithmetic error that miscalculated balances, allowing him to siphon liquidity pool funds.
Reports put losses at about $50 million in the main April 28 exploit and around $4 million in a related incident. The project soon shut down, citing “critical vulnerabilities” and leaving many users with unrecoverable losses.
Investigators allege the attacker laundered funds by swapping tokens into ether, routing them through Tornado Cash, then cashing out through exchanges and dealers. In one message quoted in filings, Spalletta allegedly boasted, “I did a crypto heist … crypto is all fake internet money anyway.”
Pokémon Cards, Ancient Coins, and a Lunar Artifact
Spalletta turned a large amount of the money into real collectibles instead of just hiding them on the blockchain. According to court papers, he bought a Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card worth about $500,000, eighteen sealed Alpha booster packs worth about $1.5 million, and several first-edition Pokémon sets worth more than $1 million.
He supposedly paid more than $601,500 for a rare Roman “Eid Mar” coin that honors the death of Julius Caesar, along with other numismatic items. The indictment also talks about a “lunar artifact” that astronaut Neil Armstrong brought to the moon on Apollo 11. Witnesses say it is fabric from the Wright brothers’ first plane.
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