MyTrade Founder Fined $10K for Running Wash Trading Service Across 60 Cryptocurrencies

MyTrade Founder Fined $10K Over Bots That Generated Fake Volume Across 60 Cryptocurrencies

Liu Zhou, 41, a Canadian citizen and Chinese national, was sentenced in Boston federal court on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, who imposed no custodial term. Zhou pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud after being charged alongside 17 other individuals and entities in October 2024.

MyTrade sold the service openly, called 'Volume Support', which allowed clients to log into a dashboard on the MyTrade MM website and specify how many wash trades they wanted executed each day on named exchanges. Bots would then do the rest, buying and selling the same asset repeatedly to inflate apparent volume.

As of October 2024, the service had dozens of clients. Zhou was candid with prospective customers, stating that MyTrade MM 'does self-trades, a buy and a sell in the same second' and its volume bot could be used to run pump and dumps.