In the waning days of 2022, a month after the collapse of FTX, federal prosecutors filed eight charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, the face of the bubble-like crypto industry. Four of them involved wire fraud.

Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams was able to act quickly because he relied on a law passed in the 1950s, decades before the advent of the Internet, email and the world of digital currencies. Wire fraud, which applies when any form of electronic communication is used, has become the weapon of choice to hone in on crypto crime as the debate over whether crypto currencies are securities plays out in court.