Aleksei Andriunin, the founder and CEO of Gotbit, has been sentenced to eight months in prison by a Massachusetts district court for manipulating the cryptocurrency market through wash trading practices. The prosecution revealed that Andriunin and his team orchestrated a scheme from 2018 to 2024, using code manipulation and multi-account operations to create artificial trading volume for multiple crypto projects. These false activities helped these projects gain notoriety on platforms like CoinMarketCap and secure listings on major exchanges, leading to significant financial gains for Gotbit. Gotbit itself has been sentenced to five years of probation, prohibiting it from any further operations in the cryptocurrency space during this period.