Nevin Shetty, the former chief financial officer of a software company, has been convicted for embezzling $35 million in company funds and losing the entire amount through reckless investments in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. According to court documents and reports from Decrypt, Shetty systematically transferred the funds to his personal cryptocurrency accounts over an extended period, violating the company's conservative investment policy.
Shetty invested the embezzled funds through his crypto platform, HighTower Treasury, into high-yield DeFi lending protocols. Initially, he generated over $133,000 in profits, but the investments were wiped out during the Terra collapse in May 2022, which erased $60 billion in value from the crypto market and caused his holdings to plunge to near-zero.
A federal jury in Seattle found Shetty guilty on four counts of wire fraud after 10 hours of deliberation. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison and will be sentenced in February. This case highlights the severe risks of unauthorized crypto investments and may influence future regulatory approaches to corporate cryptocurrency use.
