🚫Gotbit founder extradited to the United States for wire fraud, may face 20 years in prison!
Something big has happened in the cryptocurrency circle recently! 26-year-old Russian citizen Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin was recently extradited to the United States by Portugal, facing serious charges of market manipulation and wire fraud. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a huge fine!
Andriunin is accused of artificially inflating token trading volume through fake transactions between 2018 and 2024 to help clients obtain listing qualifications on platforms such as CoinMarketCap.
This operation is called "wash trading", which artificially creates trading volume to push up token prices, ultimately bringing millions of dollars in revenue to clients, and he himself has received tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
It is reported that Andriunin was arrested in Portugal in October 2024, extradited to the United States on February 25, 2025, and appeared in Boston Court for the first time on the 26th. He is currently detained. Two of its directors, Kedrov and Jalili, were also prosecuted.
The case reveals the harmfulness of manipulation in the crypto market, because "wash trading" not only disrupts the market order, but also causes losses to investors. Similar cases are not uncommon. For example, Tron founder Justin Sun was also accused of market manipulation.
With the rapid development of the cryptocurrency market, authorities and law enforcement agencies in various countries are stepping up their crackdown on market manipulation. For example, Spanish law enforcement agencies recently cooperated with Tron, Tether and TRM Labs to carry out operations against international financial crypto crimes.
Although the cryptocurrency market is very tempting, everyone should be careful not to be blinded by false trading volume and so-called "hot" tokens. I hope this incident will make more people aware of the risks of the market and make regulators pay more attention to protecting the interests of investors.
In short, the Gotbit incident sounded the alarm for us. The cryptocurrency market is not a lawless place, and any market manipulation will eventually be sanctioned by law!
💬 What is your opinion on Gotbit's market manipulation case? Faced with the repeated manipulation of the cryptocurrency market, how can investors effectively identify it? See you in the comments section!