Source: Office of United States Attorneys
BOSTON – Gotbit Consulting LLC (Gotbit), a financial services firm known in the cryptocurrency industry as a “market maker,” was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Boston for criminal charges relating to Gotbit’s fraudulent manipulation of cryptocurrency trading volume on behalf of client cryptocurrency companies.
Aleksei Andriunin, 26, of Russia and Portugal, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to eight months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release. In March 2025, Andriunin pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud. Andriunin was arrested in Portugal on Oct. 8, 2024 and extradited to the United States on Feb. 25, 2025.
As part of its criminal resolution, Gotbit was ordered to forfeit a total of approximately $23 million in seized cryptocurrency. The court also sentenced Gotbit to a term of probation for five years, during which time Gotbit shall cease to exist or operate.
Gotbit and Andriunin were indicted by a federal grand jury on the same charges in October 2024. The indictment also charges two of Gotbit’s directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili.
Gotbit was a well-known “market maker” in the cryptocurrency industry. 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. Andriunin was Gotbit’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. In a 2019 interview, Andriunin described how he developed a code to “wash trade” cryptocurrencies to artificially inflate trading volume for the purpose of getting cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap (a website that published information about “trending” cryptocurrencies) and trading on larger cryptocurrency exchanges. Andriunin and Gotbit’s employees marketed these wash trading tactics to prospective clients and explained how Gotbit used multiple accounts to avoid detection of the wash trades on the public blockchain. Gotbit made wash trades worth millions of dollars on behalf of clients and received tens of millions of dollars in payments from clients.
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. Leaders of those cryptocurrency companies were charged in separate cases unsealed in October 2024.
Gotbit is the third market maker to resolve criminal charges relating to wash trading in the cryptocurrency industry. In October 2024, the founder of MyTrade pleaded guilty in connection with providing an unlawful wash trading service identified through an undercover law enforcement operation. In April 2025, CLS Global FZC LLC was sentenced in connection with offering illegal “volume support” services uncovered by the same operation.
The Securities & Exchange Commission brought a related civil enforcement action against Gotbit alleging violations of the securities laws.
United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Kimberly Milka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Boston Division made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher J. Markham and David M. Holcomb of the Criminal Division prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Head, Chief of the Asset Recovery Unit is handling the forfeiture matter.