Manhattan US Attorney to scale back crypto cases, prosecutor says
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan will devote fewer resources to policing cryptocurrency crimes after securing several major convictions, including that of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a senior prosecutor said on Friday. Scott Hartman, co-chief of the securities and commodities task force at the Southern District of New York, gave his assessment one day after President-elect Donald Trump's former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair Jay Clayton to become the U.S. attorney there. Hartman said the office would not ignore crypto cases, but has fewer prosecutors working on them than when digital asset prices collapsed in 2022, a period known as "crypto winter."