- Gotbit CEO Aleksei Andriunin was sentenced to eight months in jail for orchestrating crypto wash buying and selling schemes.
- Gotbit itself obtained 5 years’ probation, requiring it to halt operations throughout that interval.
- Prosecutors allege the agency manipulated tens of millions in token quantity to mislead markets and safe trade listings.
Aleksei Andriunin, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of crypto market maker Gotbit, was sentenced to eight months in jail by a U.S. District Court docket in Massachusetts on Friday. Following his launch, he’ll serve an extra 12 months underneath supervised launch. Andriunin, a twin citizen of Russia and Portugal, pleaded responsible in March to fees of wire fraud and crypto market manipulation. He was arrested in Portugal in October 2024 and extradited to the U.S. earlier this 12 months.
Gotbit Hit with 5-12 months Probation and Stop of Operations
Gotbit, the corporate Andriunin based, obtained a sentence of 5 years’ probation, requiring it to close down operations throughout that interval. Prosecutors revealed that Gotbit orchestrated wash trades to create synthetic buying and selling quantity and manipulate the costs of assorted tokens. Between 2018 and 2024, the corporate reportedly supplied these providers to a number of cryptocurrency shoppers, serving to them checklist tokens on platforms like CoinMarketCap and bigger exchanges.
Prosecutors Element Wash Buying and selling Scheme
Based on prosecutors, Andriunin brazenly described in a 2019 interview how he developed code to carry out wash trades—faux transactions designed to simulate market exercise. Gotbit staff reportedly used a number of accounts to masks these trades from blockchain observers and marketed this manipulation technique to potential shoppers. The scheme concerned tens of millions of {dollars} in wash trades and earned Gotbit tens of tens of millions in shopper funds.