Gotbit Founder Aleksei Andriunin Extradied to U.S. on Fraud Charges

Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national, was extradited to the U.S. on Tuesday to face fraud charges stemming from allegations that his firm participated in a “wide-ranging conspiracy” to manipulate token prices for paying client cryptocurrency companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Wednesday. Story continues Andriunin was arrested in Portugal last October and subsequently indicted by a Boston grand jury on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud, charges which carry a combined maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. The indictment also charged Gotbit itself, as well as two of its directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, both also of Russia. Between 2018 and 2024, prosecutors say that Gotbit essentially provided market manipulation services for hire, offering their token price-inflating services to a variety of crypto companies, including companies based in the U.S. Andriunin was not shy about the nature of Gotbit’s services – in a 2019 interview with CoinDesk, which is referenced in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Wednesday announcement, Andriunin, then a sophomore at Moscow State University, bluntly admitted that his business was “not entirely ethical.” Read more: For $15K He’ll Fake Your Exchange Volume – You’ll Get on CoinMarketCap According to court documents, Gotbit received “tens of millions of dollars in proceeds” from their fraudulent activity. Andriunin is accused of “transferr[ing] millions of dollars of Gotbit’s proceeds into his personal Binance account.” Andriunin made an initial appearance before a Boston judge on Tuesday. His next hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national, was extradited to the U.S. on Tuesday to face fraud charges stemming from allegations that his firm participated in a “wide-ranging conspiracy” to manipulate token prices for paying client cryptocurrency companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Wednesday.

Story continues

Andriunin was arrested in Portugal last October and subsequently indicted by a Boston grand jury on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud, charges which carry a combined maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. The indictment also charged Gotbit itself, as well as two of its directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, both also of Russia.

Between 2018 and 2024, prosecutors say that Gotbit essentially provided market manipulation services for hire, offering their token price-inflating services to a variety of crypto companies, including companies based in the U.S.

Andriunin was not shy about the nature of Gotbit’s services – in a 2019 interview with CoinDesk, which is referenced in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Wednesday announcement, Andriunin, then a sophomore at Moscow State University, bluntly admitted that his business was “not entirely ethical.”

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

According to court documents, Gotbit received “tens of millions of dollars in proceeds” from their fraudulent activity. Andriunin is accused of “transferr[ing] millions of dollars of Gotbit’s proceeds into his personal Binance account.”

Andriunin made an initial appearance before a Boston judge on Tuesday. His next hearing has not yet been scheduled.

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NYSE-Parent ICE to Explore Stablecoins, Tokenized Funds for Financial Services With Circle

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to explore using Circle’s stablecoin and tokenized asset to develop new products, joining a roster of U.S. traditional financial giants pushing into crypto under the Trump administration.
According to an agreement announced on Thursday, the two firms will look at how Circle’s USDC stablecoin and USYC tokenized money market fund could be integrated into derivatives exchanges, clearinghouses and other services.

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“We believe Circle’s regulated stablecoins and tokenized digital currencies can play a larger role in capital markets as digital currencies become more trusted by market participants as an acceptable equivalent to the U.S. dollar,” said Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange said in a statement. “We are excited to explore the potential use cases for USDC and USYC across ICE’s markets.”

USDC is the second-largest stablecoin, trailing Tether’s USDT. It has a $60 billion market capitalization and is fully backed by U.S. government securities and cash-equivalent assets. USYC is a money market fund token issued by Hashnote, which was acquired by Circle earlier this year.
ICE is the latest example of U.S. financial behemoths delving into applying digital assets, stablecoins and tokenization as regulatory headwinds over the crypto industry subside under the Trump administration.
In the past few days, asset manager Fidelity Investments filed to launch a tokenized money market fund and is reportedly working on issuing a stablecoin, while derivatives exchange CME Group said it’s testing tokenization with Google Cloud’s private distributed ledger, aiming to launch new services next year. Tokenization is the process of placing financial instruments like bonds, funds and other securities on blockchain rails to pursue operational gains.
Martin foreshadowed the firm’s potential push into digital assets last May at a Consensus 2024 panel discussion, saying that the exchange would consider offering crypto trading if the regulatory picture in the U.S. were clearer.

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Shaurya Malwa
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

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