Gotbit founder receives 8-month sentence

The founder of Gotbit, Aleksei Andriunin, has been sentenced to 8 months in a U.S. prison following his involvement in illegal wash trades.

In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has intensified investigations into illegal activities across digital asset platforms. One such investigation into Gotbit, is now resulting in the CEO of the company being incarcerated for eight months.

Gotbit founder receives 8-month sentence

Aleksei Andriunin, the founder and CEO of Gotbit, has been sentenced to eight months in prison by a U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. His sentence also includes a year of supervised release.

The 26-year-old dual citizen of Russia and Portugal was found guilty of conducting an extensive wash trading scheme that was designed to artificially inflate the trading volume of cryptocurrencies.

Wash trading is an illegal practice where entities simultaneously buy and sell the same asset to give a misleading appearance of market activity.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Gotbit orchestrated millions of dollars’ worth of such trades between 2018 and 2024. Andriunin was arrested in Portugal in October 2024 and extradited to the United States in February 2025.

In March, he signed a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, pleading guilty to charges of wire fraud and market manipulation.

Gotbit presented itself as a cryptocurrency market maker, and as such, it was expected to provide liquidity to trading platforms, but according to the prosecutors, the firm operated more like a market manipulator.

According to court documents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Gotbit developed software that conducted automated wash trades across various platforms. This artificial activity generated by the software would trick data aggregators like CoinMarketCap and mislead both retail investors and major exchanges into believing that the assets were worth listing or investing in.

The prosecutors brought up a 2019 interview in which Andriunin openly described how he developed a code specifically to engage in wash trading. He explained how these trades could inflate the trading volume enough to “pass the filter” of CoinMarketCap, and get tokens listed on top exchanges like Binance and Huobi.

The exposure often caused the price of these coins to spike temporarily and that would significantly benefit the tokens’ developers or early investors.

“Gotbit made wash trades worth millions of dollars on behalf of clients and received tens of millions of dollars in payments,” the prosecutors said in a statement. “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.”

Court documents have revealed that many of Gotbit’s clients were startup crypto projects with limited organic market demand.

Gotbit remains on a five-year hold

Alongside Andriunin’s personal sentencing, the company he founded will face severe restrictions. Gotbit has been sentenced to five years’ probation, during which time it must cease operations entirely, according to U.S. prosecutors.

“This outcome sends a clear message that crypto markets are not a free-for-all,” U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a public statement. “Entities that engage in fraudulent schemes to inflate trading volume, deceive investors, and manipulate market integrity will be held accountable under federal law.”

Andriunin received a relatively short sentence compared to other high-profile financial crimes, but his case remains significant as it could cause centralized exchanges to reevaluate their metrics for future onboarding processes. The case also sets a precedent that U.S. enforcement efforts will still root out bad actors in the digital asset space.

Andriunin is expected to serve his eight-month sentence in federal prison before transitioning to supervised release. Prosecutors have so far not confirmed whether or not any additional individuals or clients of Gotbit will face charges.

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