Crypto Market Manipulator Pleads Guilty, Forfeits $23 Million

Boston, MA – Aleksei Andriunin, the 26-year-old founder of cryptocurrency market-making firm Gotbit, has pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud in a U.S. federal court. The plea agreement, reached in March 2025, includes the forfeiture of approximately $23 million in stablecoins tied to his illicit activities. Andriunin, a Russian national, was extradited from Portugal in February 2025 to face the charges.

The legal proceedings stem from a 2019 CoinDesk interview where Andriunin openly detailed how his company, Gotbit, engaged in "wash trading" to artificially inflate cryptocurrency trading volumes. According to the interview, Gotbit used bots to create false trading activity, enabling lesser-known tokens to meet listing requirements for platforms like CoinMarketCap and attract investors. Andriunin had then described his business as "not entirely ethical."

U.S. prosecutors alleged that between 2018 and 2024, Gotbit provided these market manipulation services to various cryptocurrency companies, generating tens of millions of dollars in proceeds. The indictment, which also named Gotbit and two of its directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, highlighted that Andriunin transferred millions of these proceeds into his personal Binance account. The FBI's investigation, which reportedly included the creation of its own "honeypot" token, led to Andriunin's arrest in Portugal in October 2024.

Andriunin's guilty plea, which carries a recommended sentence of no more than 24 months in prison, also includes a restriction preventing him from participating in any cryptocurrency issuance, purchase, or sale on U.S. trading platforms. This case marks a significant development in ongoing efforts by U.S. authorities to combat market manipulation within the cryptocurrency industry. Prosecutors emphasized that while the exact financial losses to dispersed market participants are difficult to quantify, the scheme caused foreseeable harm to those who purchased tokens at artificially inflated prices.