Gotbit founder and CEO Aleksei Andriunin, a Russian national, has been extradited to the United States for allegedly manipulating "cryptocurrency markets on behalf of client cryptocurrency companies," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Andriunin appeared in court on Wednesday and was indicted by a federal grand jury "on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud," the office said in a statement.
The Gotbit executive was arrested in Portugal last October, the statement said. Around the time of Andriunin's arrest, prosecutors alleged several individuals created crypto firms, lied about their cryptocurrencies, and then carried out wash trades to create the illusion of trading activity and increase the price of certain tokens.
The move to prosecute Andriunin comes amid a time of changing attitudes to crypto regulation in the U.S. Since Donald Trump became president in January, the U.S. government has appeared more amenable to working with crypto organizations. Whether or not this shift will impact future policing of crypto markets is unclear.
Besides Gotbit, the firms ZM Quant, CLS Global and MyTrade were also implicated last year.
"In a 2019 interview, Andriunin allegedly described how he developed a code to 'wash trade' cryptocurrencies to artificially inflate trading volume for the purpose of getting cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap ... and trading on larger cryptocurrency exchanges," according to the prosecutor's statement.
The main charge of wire fraud "provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, restitution and forfeiture," the statement said.
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