Aleksei Andriunin, the firm’s 26-year-old founder and CEO, was sentenced to eight months in prison and one year of supervised release for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and market manipulation.
Prosecutors say Gotbit orchestrated a sophisticated scheme between 2018 and 2024 that involved “wash trading,” which involves the use of multiple accounts to create fake trades and inflate apparent market activity, on behalf of various token issuers, including Robo Inu and Saitama.
As part of a plea agreement, Gotbit was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to forfeit approximately $23 million in seized cryptocurrency.
The firm, which was based outside the United States but worked with numerous U.S.-accessible crypto platforms, is now required to cease all operations.
Gotbit’s services included generating artificial trading volume to help client tokens gain visibility on platforms such as CoinMarketCap and achieve listings on top-tier exchanges.
In a 2019 interview, Andriunin openly admitted to developing wash trading software that enabled such tactics while avoiding blockchain detection.
Gotbit is the third market-making firm to be prosecuted for wash trading since 2024. Earlier cases involved MyTrade and CLS Global, both ensnared in an undercover federal operation aimed at exposing market abuse in the digital asset sector.
Gotbit’s directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, remain under indictment, with criminal proceedings ongoing. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a parallel civil enforcement action accusing Gotbit of securities law violations.
The criminal case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher J. Markham and David M. Holcomb, with asset forfeiture handled by AUSA Carol Head of the Asset Recovery Unit. The FBI’s Boston Division led the investigation.
