MyTrade founder Liu Zhou has been fined $10,000 after admitting he used trading bots to wash trade 60 cryptocurrencies — and told undercover agents his goal was to make other buyers lose money. The Justice Department announced the penalty this week, saying the fine and Zhou's statements came from its investigation.
How the scheme worked
Wash trading is fake volume. The same person — or a bot — buys and sells an asset to itself, inflating activity and tricking real traders into thinking a token is more liquid than it is. The DOJ said Zhou ran that play across 60 cryptocurrencies on MyTrade, the exchange he founded.
The mechanics matter here. Automated bots don't get tired, and they don't care if the order book is lopsided. They just churn. That's what makes wash trading hard to spot from the outside and easy to run at scale. Sixty tokens is a lot of churn.
What Zhou told undercover agents
The detail that stands out is Zhou's stated objective. He told undercover agents the point wasn't just to pump up volume numbers. It was to make other buyers lose money. That's a confession of intent, not a happy accident — and it's likely why the case drew federal attention in the first place.
The Justice Department didn't release the full transcript of those conversations. But its characterization is blunt, and it frames Zhou's words as a direct admission.
The penalty
The fine is $10,000. For a wash-trading operation touching 60 assets, that's a modest sum — the kind of number that fits a first-time enforcement action more than a sprawling fraud case. The DOJ framed it as the resolution of the case against Zhou personally. Whether MyTrade itself faces further action wasn't stated in the announcement.
Wash trading has been a sore spot in crypto for years. Regulators have chased it across exchanges, and this case adds another data point: even a small fine can carry a public admission of intent.
The Justice Department said the fine and Zhou's statements are per its findings. No further charges were announced. Against Zhou, the case appears closed.
The open question is whether the DOJ treats this as a one-off or a warning aimed at other platforms running the same playbook. That answer isn't in the release — and for now, it's the only thing left hanging.
