Prosecutors Charge Two Crypto ‘Market Makers,’ Employees With Market Manipulation, Fraud

Federal prosecutors charged two purported market makers, a handful of crypto projects, and over a dozen individuals with manipulating various crypto markets Wednesday, saying they profited from fees and selling manipulated coins at elevated values.

According to charging documents unsealed Wednesday, Gotbit and ZM Quant wash traded various tokens to make it appear they had more legitimate activity than they actually did, selling some of these tokens at “artificially inflated prices” to others, marketing these coins on various platforms and convincing exchanges to let them buy tokens with reduced fees.

Prosecutors say that both Gobit and ZM Quant publicly claimed to be legitimate market makers offering legal services, but privately offered clients illegal services including wash trading to artificially increase the token volume and boost prices.

At least in Gobit’s case, the illegal offerings weren’t actually all that private: in 2019, Gobit co-founder Alexey Andryunin, then a 20-year-old college sophomore, explained to CoinDesk exactly how the wash trading services he offered his clients worked. He was blunt about the questionable nature of his business, admitting that Gobit was not registered in any jurisdiction because it was “not entirely ethical.”

The list of manipulated tokens included robo inu, which pumped after the indictment was unsealed.

Edited by Stephen Alpher.