Crypto investigator ZachXBT publicly accused Bitget of being part of a “Chinese CEX cartel” that enables token manipulation schemes, directly naming the exchange’s founder and chairman Shawn Liu—his most aggressive public attack on a centralized exchange to date.
The statement came hours after blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain flagged that 10 wallets had withdrawn 100 million LAB tokens—worth approximately $480 million and representing nearly one-third of the circulating supply—from Bitget’s hot wallet in a 12-hour window. The withdrawal pattern mirrors the on-chain behavior that preceded LAB’s 500%+ pump and 84% crash earlier this month, which ZachXBT and other investigators have alleged was a coordinated insider manipulation.
ZachXBT Names Bitget CEO Shawn Liu
“Shawn Liu is the Bitget big boss who allows these scams to operate behind the scenes while Gracy Chen is only the face of it,” ZachXBT wrote on X, referring to Bitget’s public-facing CEO and its founder-chairman. “The Chinese CEX cartel has gone unchallenged for years and doesn’t care as long as they benefit from the activity.”
He added: “I think it is almost time to increase public attacks against Bitget.”
The post represents a significant escalation from ZachXBT’s earlier approach of tagging Gracy Chen directly and requesting investigation updates. By naming Shawn Liu and framing the issue as institutional rather than operational, the investigator is shifting the target from individual token projects to exchange-level accountability.
The statement drew pushback from some community members. One user, @JobberTheGuru, accused ZachXBT of racism for using the phrase “Chinese CEX cartel.” ZachXBT responded, “Funny how your default response is to call it ‘racism’ but you have zero evidence to support that statement. When I criticized decisions from other exchanges in the past such as Coinbase you were silent.”
The Trigger: 100M LAB Withdrawn to Fresh Wallets
Lookonchain flagged the withdrawals on May 12, identifying 10 previously unused addresses that received between 8.6 million and 10.8 million LAB tokens each from Bitget’s hot wallet (labeled 0x1AB on Arkham Intelligence). The individual transfers ranged from $41.5 million to $52.92 million per wallet.
Arkham Intelligence data confirms that all 10 receiving addresses are freshly created with no prior transaction history. The 100 million tokens represent 32.26% of LAB’s circulating supply, which CoinMarketCap currently lists at just 309.95 million out of a total and maximum supply of 1 billion. This means approximately 69% of LAB’s total supply remains outside circulation—locked, held by team wallets, or controlled by unknown entities.
A Familiar Pattern
The timing and structure of the withdrawals echo the on-chain activity that preceded LAB’s explosive rally and collapse in early May. In the days before the pump, @SpecterAnalyst had documented a similar pattern in reverse: team-linked wallets depositing 96 million LAB ($63 million) to Bitget in the week before the price surge, and a separate wallet (0xe037) moving 40 million LAB ($13.6 million) to the same exchange on April 8.
The current outflows could represent positioning for another pump-and-dump cycle, accumulation by a new set of holders, or preparation for an over-the-counter transfer. Without transparency from either Bitget or the LAB team, the community is left to interpret the wallet movements against a backdrop of already-established manipulation allegations.
The pattern also closely mirrors the RAVE token collapse in April, where large CEX outflows to new addresses preceded a 95% crash that wiped $6 billion in value. ZachXBT has explicitly connected the two cases, noting that Bitget’s investigation into RAVE — publicly acknowledged weeks ago—has produced no public update.
LAB Market Snapshot
Despite the on-chain alarm signals, LAB’s price has continued to climb. As of publication, LAB is trading at approximately $4.76, up 6.23% in 24 hours. The token’s market cap stands at $1.47 billion, with an unlocked (fully diluted) market cap of $2.01 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $156.12 million — a 190.1% spike.
The most striking metric remains the liquidity-to-market-cap ratio: just 0.35% for a token with a $1.57 billion market cap, that translates to approximately $4.75 million in actual on-chain liquidity — a structural vulnerability that allows insiders with large holdings to move the price with relatively small capital. The token has just 19004 holders.
Bitget Under Mounting Pressure
Bitget has faced escalating scrutiny throughout 2026 from multiple directions. Beyond the LAB and RAVE manipulation allegations, the exchange disclosed a roughly $100 million loss in April tied to a VOXEL market manipulation exploit, where a small cluster of eight accounts exploited a flaw in Bitget’s internal market-making bot logic to extract outsized, low-risk profits.
ZachXBT last week announced a $10,000 personal bounty on the LAB founder’s identity—requesting a passport/ID or insider details of the market maker (contracts, chat logs) used for LAB on Bitget spot, Bybit perps, Binance perps, and OKX perps. The scope of the bounty naming four major exchanges suggests the alleged manipulation extends beyond a single venue.
The framing has now shifted from individual token investigations to a broader indictment of exchange-level governance. By naming Shawn Liu personally and describing Bitget’s operations as a “cartel,” ZachXBT is signaling that the pressure campaign will target the exchange’s institutional reputation rather than individual listings.
No formal response has been issued by Bitget, Shawn Liu, Gracy Chen, or the LAB team regarding the latest withdrawal activity. The LAB founder (@vsadkovv) remains silent — with reports of deleted posts and ignored direct messages continuing from last week.
