On-chain evidence shows that the LAB team's associated wallet has repeatedly made large deposits of tokens to exchanges during the price surge.

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

On May 7, on-chain detective ZachXBT publicly offered a reward of $10,000 for information on the identity of LAB token founder vsadkovv (Vova Sadkov), including passport, government-issued ID, and internal documents such as market-making contracts and chat logs used by LAB on Bitget spot, Bybit perpetual contracts, Binance perpetual contracts, and OKX perpetual contracts.

ZachXBT stated that he had previously contacted the LAB team privately but received no response, leading him to choose to escalate the matter publicly. He specifically pointed out in a tweet that vsadkovv was posting "philosophical reflections" on social media to manage his personal image while participating in token price manipulation, claiming such behavior "was further undermining the overall credibility of the crypto industry."

On the same day, on-chain analyst Specter released a more detailed on-chain tracking report characterizing LAB's price fluctuations as price surge manipulation.

A Pre-Meditated Price Surge

LAB is a multi-chain trading terminal project that supports multi-chain trading of spot, limit orders, and perpetual contracts, featuring AI-driven analytical tools. According to estimates from several on-chain analysts, approximately 95% of LAB's token supply is concentrated in the hands of the team and insiders. Specter listed at least six wallet addresses associated with the team that still hold large amounts of LAB tokens.

From the price chart, LAB traded within the low range of $0.2 to $0.5 throughout early to late April. Around April 28, it began to rise step by step, breaking through $1 and $2, and on May 4, it accelerated to nearly $5, marking a more than 1300% increase in less than 30 days. However, there were significant fluctuations during this period, with multiple instances of sharp corrections after rises.

According to Arkham's monitoring, LAB's core associated address began intensive fundraising towards three Bitget deposit addresses (0xDd7..., 0x659...) around April 24. Statistics show that these two addresses received a total of 100 million LAB tokens, valued at approximately $64.96 million, all of which subsequently entered the Bitget hot wallet.

On April 25, the address transferred 18 million LAB tokens to the Bitget deposit addresses in two transactions, with a total value of about $15.39 million. Analysts noted that LAB's circulating supply was 230.4 million tokens, meaning that the total amount received by this Bitget deposit address accounted for about 50% of its circulating total at that time. The transfer of large tokens to the exchange during the price surge may indicate subsequent actions for selling off to realize profits or market makers adjusting their positions.

According to Specter's analysis, in May, addresses associated with the LAB project began to show a series of highly suspicious on-chain operations.

One address (0xb61d2e77...f18a103e5) made multiple Multicall and Transfer operations on May 5, involving interactions with SushiSwap V3 and contract creation. More notably, on May 4, another group of addresses (0x11F9b0f4...DF8e61Df) initiated at least nine deposit transactions to the Tornado Cash Router, with each transaction being 100 ETH, totaling at least 900 ETH. Additionally, there was one deposit of 10 ETH and one deposit of 1 ETH, bringing the total to over 911 ETH.

After the Hammer: The Project Continues to Transfer Large Amounts of Tokens

It is worth noting that even after ZachXBT publicly offered a reward for investigation, the LAB project's on-chain operations did not stop. According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, on May 7, one address received 3.66 million LAB from the LAB project’s multi-signature address (0x36F...0C291), valued at about $14.07 million. The source of this funding traces back to the deployment address of the LAB token. Subsequently, this address transferred 2.125 million tokens to two contract addresses, whose purpose remains unclear.

Regarding the price, LAB fell from nearly $5 to $3 after ZachXBT's accusations but quickly rebounded within a night, as of May 8 quoting approximately $4.64011, almost fully recovering the decline.

In October 2025, LAB announced it had completed a $5 million investment round, with participation from Selini Capital, Re7 Capital, Cypher Capital, RedBeard VC, Lemniscap, TVM Ventures, OKX Ventures, Mirana, KuCoin Ventures, Gate Ventures, GSR, Animoca Brands, and Presto Labs. The funds will be used to accelerate infrastructure, product, and global expansion.

Price manipulation issues in the crypto industry are triggering broader regulatory attention. In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice sued ten executives from market makers such as Gotbit and Vortex, accusing them of using bot wash trading to inflate token prices, with the founder of Gotbit pleading guilty and agreeing to forfeit $23 million. Whether the LAB incident will trigger similar law enforcement actions depends on whether ZachXBT's bounty investigation can gather sufficient identity and contract evidence.

As of the time of publication, the LAB project team and vsadkovv have not publicly responded to the aforementioned allegations.