CFO Convicted for Losing $35 Million of Company Money in Crypto Side Hustle

In brief

• Nevin Shetty, former CFO of a software firm, was convicted of wire fraud for secretly moving $35 million in company funds into his own crypto platform after learning he’d be fired.
• He put the money into risky DeFi lending protocols, briefly earning profits before the Terra collapse wiped out the investment to near-zero.
• A federal jury in Seattle found him guilty on four counts; he’ll be sentenced in February and faces up to 20 years in prison.

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A Washington man was convicted in a federal jury trial this week for taking tens of millions of dollars from the company he worked for—and losing nearly all of it in a botched crypto play.

Nevin Shetty, 41, was found guilty Thursday on four counts of wire fraud for taking and misusing some $35 million worth of funds from a private software company where he worked as CFO.

Though Shetty himself drafted a conservative investment policy for the startup—which called for its money to be invested only in FDIC-insured treasury and bank accounts—the executive soon secretly moved tens of millions of dollars of company funds to a crypto platform he himself had developed.

Shetty opted to transfer the funds to his crypto business weeks after receiving news that he would soon be let go due to performance concerns, according to federal prosecutors.

Through his crypto platform, HighTower Treasury, Shetty invested the company’s funds in a variety of high-yield decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols.

The plan worked—at least initially. During the first weeks of the scheme, in April 2022, Shetty generated over $133,000 of profit for himself and his business partner.

But then crypto winter came. In early May 2022, the algorithmic stablecoin Terra collapsed, instantly wiping out $60 billion in value and dragging the rest of the crypto market down with it.

In the days that followed, Shetty’s $35 million worth of crypto investments plunged towards worthlessness. By May 13, 2022, they had fallen to near-zero value.

Shortly after the funds were wiped out, Shetty told two of his colleagues at the software company what had happened. He was promptly fired.

A Seattle jury convicted Shetty on four counts of wire fraud after 10 hours of deliberation.

The executive will be sentenced in February, and faces up to 20 years in prison.