- Bitcoin Rodney pleads guilty to promoting a $1.8B HyperFund scheme, pocketing $7.85M personally.
- HyperFund promised 0.5 to 1% daily returns from fake mining operations before blocking withdrawals.
- FBI reports crypto fraud cost Americans $11B in 2025 across more than 180,000 complaints filed.
Rodney Burton, 56, of Miami, known online as Bitcoin Rodney, pleaded guilty in federal court in Maryland to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business connected to a $1.8 billion global cryptocurrency fraud scheme called HyperFund.
Burton promoted HyperFund between June 2020 and January 2022, using investor funds to enrich himself while the platform operated as a global wire fraud scheme. He personally received at least $7.85 million in proceeds from the operation. Sentencing is scheduled for July 23 before US District Judge Richard D. Bennett, with a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
How HyperFund Worked
HyperFund presented itself as a legitimate cryptocurrency investment platform, promising members daily passive rewards of between 0.5% and 1% until their initial investment doubled or tripled. The platform claimed it generated those returns through large-scale crypto mining operations. Those operations did not exist.
From 2021 onward, HyperFund began blocking investor withdrawals, trapping funds from victims worldwide. Burton controlled several companies that appeared to offer consulting services but functioned as unlicensed money transmitting businesses, funneling investor funds through the scheme.
The Broader Epidemic
Burton’s case sits within a much larger pattern of cryptocurrency fraud that is accelerating across the United States.
Pennsylvania State Police are currently warning residents about a surge in crypto scams where victims receive calls claiming a federal arrest warrant has been issued against them. Scammers instruct victims to post bail through Bitcoin kiosks while keeping them on the phone for hours under a fabricated gag order.
The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report recorded more than one million cybercrime complaints with total losses reaching nearly $21 billion. Cryptocurrency fraud was the single most damaging category, accounting for over $11 billion in losses across more than 180,000 complaints. Americans over 60 suffered approximately $7.7 billion in losses, the highest of any age group.
Emerging threats flagged by the FBI include AI-generated deepfake identities, voice cloning, and fabricated media used to manipulate victims into transferring funds, representing the next evolution of crypto fraud beyond traditional impersonation schemes.
Related: FBI Warns Crypto Scammers Are Using Couriers to Collect Victims’ Cash
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