A man stole $54.7 MILLION from a crypto exchange, called crypto “fake internet money,” and spent part of the money on a $500K trading card and a piece of an airplane that went to the Moon.
> In April 2021 Jonathan Spalletta, known online as Cthulhon, targeted Uranium Finance, a decentralized crypto exchange.
> On April 8, he exploited a smart-contract flaw and stole approximately $1.4 MILLION.
> Two weeks later, he admitted in a message “I did a crypto heist of $1.5 MILLION a couple of weeks ago.”
> He added that crypto was “all fake internet money anyway.”
> Uranium allowed him to keep approximately $386,000 under what prosecutors described as a sham bug-bounty arrangement.
> Three weeks after the first attack, he struck again.
> On April 28, he exploited another smart-contract flaw across multiple liquidity pools, stealing approximately $53.3 MILLION.
> The exchange no longer had enough funds to operate and shut down.
> Spalletta moved the stolen funds through multiple cryptocurrency transactions, including Tornado Cash.
> He bought a Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card for approximately $500,000 and spent another $1.5 MILLION on 18 sealed packs of vintage Magic cards.
> He also bought a first-edition Pokémon card set for $750,000 and a sealed booster box for $257,500.
> Then there's the $137,500 piece of fabric from the Wright brothers' airplane that Neil Armstrong carried to the Moon.
> He also spent approximately $601,545 on a Roman coin commemorating Julius Caesar's assassination.
> In February 2025, authorities seized approximately $31 MILLION in cryptocurrency linked to the attacks.
> On October 7, 2026, a jury convicted Spalletta of computer fraud and money laundering.
He stole nearly $55 MILLION, dismissed crypto as fake money, and turned some of the proceeds into extraordinary collectibles.