According to PANews, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the operator of cryptocurrency market maker MyTrade has pleaded guilty. This development is part of a larger crackdown earlier this month targeting multiple companies and individuals accused of market manipulation. The Justice Department stated that 39-year-old Liu Zhou will face trial in federal court early next year for engaging in wash trading of customers' cryptocurrencies across various exchanges. Liu Zhou admitted to conducting self-buy and self-sell transactions within the same second, utilizing trading volume bots for 'pump and dump' schemes. He also allegedly indicated that his company's goal was to find other buyers in the community, who were unaware or indifferent, as these buyers needed to incur losses for the tokens to be profitable.
Federal indictment documents released a few weeks ago also accused Gotbit, CLS Global, and ZM Quant of engaging in wash trading of various tokens to create a false impression of legitimate trading activity. These tokens were then sold to others at artificially inflated prices. Meanwhile, CLS Global has stated that it has contacted U.S. authorities to cooperate with the investigation.