Here's the story that came out with Gotbit. The company's founder, Alexey Andryunin, received 8 months in prison for manipulation in the cryptocurrency market. The 26-year-old Russian, who also held Portuguese citizenship, was detained in Portugal last fall, then extradited to the United States, and in March pleaded guilty before a Massachusetts court.

The essence of the charge is this: Andryunin created technology for fake trades. An entire system of wash transactions that artificially inflated trading volumes. According to prosecutors, he even openly discussed this scheme in a 2019 interview, explaining how the code works and how it helps to rank high on crypto platform leaderboards.

Gotbit employees actively sold this service to clients. They explained how to use multiple accounts to cover their tracks on the blockchain. The result: the company carried out such operations worth millions of dollars, earning clients tens of millions in payments. Prosecutors called this outright fraud using electronic communications.

Now, the Gotbit company itself is banned from operating for five years. Alexey Andryunin is set to serve his sentence. Interestingly, this is one of the few cases where the founder of a crypto company was actually held accountable in the U.S. for market manipulation. Usually, such cases either end with fines or don't reach court at all.