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Gotbit Founder Aleksei Andriunin Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud, Market Manipulation

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Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin struck a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday that will see him serve no more than 24 months behind bars for his role in what prosecutors described as a “wide-ranging conspiracy” to manipulate token prices for paying clients.

Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national, was extradited to the U.S. from Portugal last month and charged with two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud – charges which carry a maximum combined sentence of 25 years in prison. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Andriunin pleaded guilty to all three counts. He also agreed to forfeit approximately $23 million in stablecoins tied to his crimes. The government is not seeking any other fine.

In their indictment last October, prosecutors alleged that Gotbit was basically a market manipulator for hire, offering wash-trading services to paying crypto projects who wanted to artificially inflate the volume and price of their tokens.

Andriunin’s guilty plea is not entirely surprising: he was never coy about Gotbit’s business activities. In a 2019 interview with CoinDesk, Andriunin – then a 20-year-old college sophomore at Moscow State University – admitted that his business was “not entirely ethical” and detailed how he used bot trading to create enough artificial trade volume for a project to be listed on CoinMarketCap.

Read more: For $15K, He’ll Fake Your Exchange Volume – You’ll Get on CoinMarketCap

Gotbit is not the only market maker offering these services. At the same time that Andriunin and his company were charged, along with two other employees, U.S. prosecutors charged a handful of other firms, including CLS Global, MyTrade and ZMQuant, as well as several of the companies’ employees and promoters, with similarly offering for-hire market manipulation services.

Andriunin’s sentencing date has not yet been set.

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True Markets Raises $11M in Series A, Launches Mobile-First DeFi Trading App on Solana

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True Markets, a new decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform focused on stablecoin-native execution, has launched its mobile app on Solana and closed an $11 million Series A, bringing total funding to $20 million, the company said in a press release Tuesday.

The funding round was co-led by Accomplice and RRE Ventures, with participation from Reciprocal Ventures, Variant Fund, and PayPal Ventures.

Seed investors Paxos Ventures and the Solana Foundation, continue to support the firm, True Markets said.

Founded by Coinbase (COIN) and Circle veterans Vishal Gupta and Patrick McCreary, New York-based True Markets aims to deliver a non-custodial, mobile-first DeFi trading experience for retail users, prioritizing speed, simplicity, and transparency.

The app enables stablecoin-powered token trading on Solana, with gasless execution, smart order routing, and embedded key management via Turnkey, all without users surrendering custody of funds, True Markets said.

“Retail traders have been stuck with clunky workflows, unclear pricing, and fragmented liquidity,» said Vishal Gupta, CEO of True Markets, in the release.

«Our goal is to deliver a fairer and more transparent experience that makes asset discovery simple, shows real-time market momentum, and feels as intuitive as the best apps on your phone,» Gupta added.

Backed by infrastructure partners Turnkey and Definitive, the app features real-time market sparklines, automated execution across decentralized venues, and hosted wallets that support immediate funding and trading within a non-custodial framework.

True Markets said it plans to expand into both CeFi and DeFi markets, with future integrations including TrueX, a centralized exchange designed for institutional liquidity and qualified custody.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

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CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Litecoin (LTC) Drops 6.1%, Leading Index Lower

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CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3147.53, down 0.7% (-22.88) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday.

Four of 20 assets are trading higher.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2025-05-20: full chart

Leaders: AAVE (+9.8%) and HBAR (+0.7%).

Laggards: LTC (-6.1%) and FIL (-2.9%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

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KULR Boosts Bitcoin Treasury to 800 BTC With $9M Purchase

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Energy management firm KULR (KULR) has expanded its bitcoin treasury to more than 800 tokens, with the purchase an additional $9 million worth of BTC.

The latest acquisition — made at an average price of $103,234 each — brings the total amount KULR has spent on the cryptocurrency to $78 million.

This continues the company’s treasury strategy first announced in December last year, under which it committed to holding up to 90% of its surplus cash reserves in bitcoin.

The Houston-based firm, which develops energy storage systems for aerospace and defense, is measuring the success of this pivot using a BTC Yield metric.

That metric tracks the growth in the ratio of bitcoin holdings to the number of shares outstanding, rather than actual dollar returns or revenue. So far in 2025, KULR says that ratio has jumped by 220, according to this morning’s press release.

KULR’s shares are up 3.15% in pre-market trading at $1.3.

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