Overview
- U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley imposed a $10,000 fine on Liu Zhou and ordered permanent deactivation of MyTrade’s wash‑trading bots on Thursday, August 5, 2026.
- Zhou pleaded guilty on October 30, 2024 to conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud and received no prison time under the sentencing.
- Prosecutors say MyTrade sold a product called Volume Support that ran automated simultaneous buy and sell orders to fabricate trading volume across roughly 60 cryptocurrencies and produced millions in daily self‑trades.
- The FBI built a fake token named NexFundAI as part of Operation Token Mirrors to hire and record market makers offering artificial volume, and that sting provided key evidence in the case.
- The sentence prioritizes disabling the operational infrastructure behind wash trading and reinforces that existing U.S. statutes can be used against on‑chain manipulation while related prosecutions of other market makers continue.