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MyTrade founder Liu Zhou fined $10,000 in crypto manipulation case

MyTrade founder Liu Zhou fined $10,000 in crypto manipulation case

Boston federal court imposed no prison term after Zhou's guilty plea in an FBI sting that exposed wash-trading bots used to fabricate volume across roughly 60 cryptocurrencies.

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Fact Check
The primary DOJ press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office (District of Massachusetts) confirms every element of the claim: Liu Zhou, founder of MyTrade, was sentenced to a $10,000 fine for a market manipulation conspiracy; MyTrade's 'Volume Support' service used wash-trading bots to fabricate trading volume; and the service and bots were shut down. Secondary reports from PANews and RootData corroborate and cite the same DOJ source. The only minor nuance is the fine resulted from a sentencing following an October 2024 guilty plea (to conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud), consistent with 'crypto manipulation case.'
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Summary

MyTrade founder Liu Zhou was fined $10,000 and avoided prison after pleading guilty in Boston to conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud in a scheme that sold fake trading activity to cryptocurrency projects. Prosecutors said MyTrade's "Volume Support" dashboard let clients order daily wash trades on named exchanges, where bots then placed self-matching buy and sell orders to inflate apparent volume across roughly 60 cryptocurrencies and draw real traders into distorted markets. The FBI exposed the operation through NexFundAI, a fictitious Ethereum-based token used in an undercover sting that led to October 2024 charges against 18 individuals and entities, including Gotbit, ZM Quant and CLS Global. Under his plea deal, Zhou agreed that MyTrade would stop the service, permanently disable the bots and post a notice on its website stating that volume support is illegal under U.S. law.

Terms & Concepts
  • wash-trading bots: Automated programs that repeatedly buy and sell the same asset to create fake market activity and misleading trading volume.
  • market manipulation: Conduct intended to distort an asset's apparent price, volume or liquidity and mislead market participants.
  • liquidity: A measure of how easily an asset can be bought or sold without significantly moving its price.