On-chain investigator ZachXBT has publicly accused Vova Sadkov, founder of the AI trading terminal project LAB, of market manipulation. In a detailed exposé, ZachXBT claims that wallets linked to the LAB team coordinated large deposits of LAB tokens to centralized exchanges just before a significant price rally, effectively using retail investors as exit liquidity.
ZachXBT initially reached out to the LAB team privately but received no response. Escalating the matter, he announced a $10,000 bounty for concrete evidence, including contracts, chat logs, insider market-maker details from Bitget spot, Bybit perpetuals, Binance perpetuals, and OKX perpetuals. He is also seeking identity documents such as a passport or government-issued ID for Sadkov, known online as vsadkovv.
On-chain analyst Specter quickly backed the accusations with what he called strong on-chain proof of a classic pump-and-dump scheme, highlighting gas fee links between wallets allegedly controlled by LAB insiders or Sadkov. Some of those wallets were also tied to other tokens like SkyAI. LAB had previously raised $1.5 million from institutional investors, raising further concerns.
ZachXBT also directed sharp criticism at centralized exchanges, arguing they benefit from trading fees generated by manipulated tokens and should freeze market-maker profits and redistribute them to victims. He publicly called on Bitget CEO Gracy Chen to take swifter action. The investigator has separately flagged multiple other tokens (RAVE, SIREN, MYX, etc.) for suspicious activity, underscoring a growing pattern of questionable token behavior on major platforms.
At the time of writing, LAB has not responded to the allegations. With a live bounty and several on-chain analysts now investigating, more details are expected to emerge shortly.
