the two co-founders of the now-defunct cryptocurrency mining service company HashFlare, after admitting to telecommunications fraud, requested that a U.S. judge not sentence them to additional prison time; however, prosecutors argued that they should be sentenced to ten years in prison for orchestrating a $577 million Ponzi scheme.

In a sentencing memorandum submitted to Judge Robert Lasnik of the Seattle Federal Court on Wednesday, prosecutors stated that Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin should each be sentenced to 10 years in prison because they committed "extremely serious crimes" that resulted in losses of approximately $300 million for victims.

Prosecutors noted that the ten-year sentence is reasonable because the HashFlare case is the largest fraud case ever tried by the court. However, Potapenko and Turõgin argued in a sentencing memorandum submitted on the same day that such a punishment is too severe, citing the time they had already served in detention in Estonia and their cooperation in the case as reasons for leniency.