A Brooklyn federal judge called a digital currency at the center of a seminal fraud case a “grand misrepresentation” during a hearing on Tuesday, seemingly handing federal prosecutors an advantage before the trial is even set to begin.

Judge Raymond J. Dearie pushed back hard against the defense attorneys for Brooklyn resident Maksim Zaslavskiy, whom the government accused last year of bilking investors out of $400,000 in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.

Zaslavskiy, 39, claims he was raising money for two ventures that would allow investors to buy real estate or diamonds through digital currencies similar to bitcoin called REcoin and Diamond Reserve Coin.

But the judge wasn’t buying it.

“It’s a grand misrepresentation,” Dearie said. “It was gossamer. There was just nothing to it.”