Gotbit Got Got: Founder Sentenced to Prison for Crypto Wash Trading

Crypto market maker Gotbit and its founder were sentenced Friday for using wash trading to falsely inflate the trading volume of meme coins on behalf of clients.

Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley ordered Gotbit Consulting LLC to forfeit $23 million in seized cryptocurrency, with founder Aleksei Andriunin sentenced to eight months in prison and one year of supervised release.

Both were charged in 2024 with market manipulation, wire fraud, and conspiracy. The charges were part of a broader crackdown announced in October, when the Department of Justice indicted 14 people and four companies, including Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global, and MyTrade, for market manipulation and wire fraud.

As part of the plea agreement reached in March, Gotbit agreed to forfeit over $22.8 million in cryptocurrency, including approximately $9 million in Tether (USDT) and $4.2 million in USDC from one wallet, along with two additional wallets containing $5 million and $4.7 million in USDT.

The court found that the scheme caused financial harm to investors who bought overvalued cryptocurrencies, but the total losses or profits could not be reliably calculated for sentencing purposes, resulting in a reduced sentence for Andriunin.

“We’re incredibly gratified by the sentence, and he’s looking forward to getting home to his wife and family,” Andriunin’s attorney, Roger Burlingame, said in a statement.

In March, Andriunin pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation.

“Between 2018 and 2024, Gotbit provided market manipulation services to create artificial trading volume for multiple cryptocurrency companies, including companies located in the United States and companies whose cryptocurrencies traded on platforms available to investors located in the United States,” the DOJ said in a statement.

Wash trading is a practice in which the same asset is repeatedly bought and sold to inflate trading volume without any legitimate market activity. Often, this manipulation is done using multiple accounts or by colluding with others.

According to the DOJ, Andriunin created software that executed trades between multiple controlled accounts to simulate legitimate volume. The firm marketed these tools as a way to gain listings on platforms like CoinMarketCap and larger cryptocurrency exchanges.

“Gotbit admitted that it engaged in manipulative trades to artificially increase the trading price and volume of tokens for clients that included Robo Inu and Saitama,” prosecutors said.

Gotbit is the third crypto market maker convicted in connection with illegal wash trading, following the founder of MyTrade in October 2024 and CLS Global FZC LLC in April 2025, according to the DOJ.

Edited by Andrew Hayward