- Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin has been released from U.S. custody after he was sentenced to time served by a judge over market manipulation.
- Andriunin had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud and was sentenced last week to eight months in prison
- Andriunin now faces deportation, while Gotbit has forfeited $23 million in crypto and has ceased operations
Aleksei Andriunin, the 26-year-old founder of crypto market-making firm Gotbit, will soon be on a plane to Russia after a U.S. judge sentenced him to time served over market manipulation. Andriunin was last week sentenced to eight months in a U.S. prison for conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud following a guilty plea in March, a term already served during pre-trial detention in Portugal. As a result, the Russian was released and now faces deportation, while the company he founded faces closure, having sacrificed $23 million as part of the plea deal.
Operation Token Mirrors Succeeds
From 2018 to 2024, Gotbit operated as a high-volume crypto “market maker,” deploying software-driven wash trades to inflate token volumes and mislead both exchanges and investors, activities that reportedly earned the firm tens of millions annually and employed over 200 people. In a 2019 interview, Andriunin described how Gotbit used coded algorithms to generate fake volume, enabling clients’ tokens to appear on CoinMarketCap and gain traction on trading platforms.
Andriunin was one of 18 people arrested last October as part of the FBI-led “Operation Token Mirrors,” a pioneering investigation in which federal agents created a decoy token—NexFundAI—to catch wash-traders in the act. Several firms fell for it, including Gotbit, ZM Quant, and CLS Global. The initiative led to over $25 million in crypto seizures and marked the first criminal enforcement action targeting crypto market manipulation by U.S. agencies.
Andriunin Sentenced to Time Served
Having been arrested in 2024, Andriunin was deported from Portugal to the U.S. to face charges relating to GotBit’s role, where he pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit market manipulation and wire fraud, acknowledging that Gotbit used coded software and multiple accounts to artificially boost token trading volumes with the aim of assisting clients in securing listings on major exchanges.
As part of the plea agreement, Gotbit handed over around $23 million in seized cryptocurrency, including stablecoins held in wallets controlled by Andriunin, and agreed to cease operations during a five-year probation period. Whether it survives at all is up for debate.
On June 12, Judge Angel Kelley sentenced Andriunin to eight months in prison plus one year of supervised release. However, when weighed against the time he spent in Portuguese custody after his October 2024 arrest, the Russian faced no extra time in prison and was released. His attorney, Roger Burlingame, expressed relief for his client, noting Andriunin is “looking forward to getting home to his wife and family.”
