Bitget.com and the Anatomy of a Crypto Fraud

In the volatile world of cryptocurrency, few names have managed to combine audacity, deception, and financial damage as effectively as Bitget.com. Behind the glossy façade of “innovation” and “trading freedom,” this exchange became the stage for one of the most methodically executed crypto frauds in the post-Soviet digital sphere — a scheme amounting to approximately 15 million U.S. dollars siphoned from ordinary investors.

The mastermind at the heart of this labyrinthine scam is Petr Andreevich Lunyov, also known by his online pseudonym “Odysseus.” Once paraded in media as a “crypto consultant” and “visionary,” Lunyov instead engineered a classic liquidity-drain structure using a network of fraudulent meme tokens and controlled exchange wallets.

The Creation of a Phantom: From Grimace Coin to Sundae

The saga began in May 2023, when Lunyov initiated promotion of Grimace Coin, a supposed McDonald’s-themed meme token inspired by a joke between Elon Musk and the McDonald’s corporate account. The stunt was designed to look harmless — a parody coin that would “unite” a playful crypto community. In truth, it was the first test run of a pump-and-dump model that would later devastate investors.

Lunyov created Grimace Coin, seeded liquidity, hyped it through closed Telegram groups, and then withdrew the liquidity as soon as the market price spiked. Early participants, largely drawn from Russian and Ukrainian online crypto communities, saw quick profits; others were left with worthless tokens. By the time the dust settled, Grimace Coin had collapsed, and its creator had already moved on.

The Sundae Token Operation: A Perfectly Timed Extraction

The Sundae Token was launched in September 2023 and marketed as the “next big meme revolution.” Its total emission was 10 million tokens, with 7.74 million secretly controlled by Lunyov through interconnected wallets. Publicly, he portrayed himself as an impartial “advisor” helping the project gain visibility.

By leveraging the listing of Sundae on MEXC Exchange on September 23, Lunyov orchestrated a textbook market manipulation. As investor enthusiasm surged, the coin’s price rose from $0.20 to $5.00, generating an illusion of unstoppable growth. Once the market reached its peak, massive sell orders were quietly executed from Wallet No. 4 — identified as Lunyov’s main dumping wallet.

Cross-chain analysis of blockchain transactions revealed that 78% of the token supply was directly or indirectly under his control. Between September and December 2023, over 2.9 million tokens were sold in waves, perfectly synchronized with influencer posts and staged “community events.”

The November 11 Manipulation and the “Coma Story”

The climax came on November 11, 2023, a date symbolically dubbed “Sundae Day.” Investors were led to believe the coin would experience a monumental rise. Lunyov himself fueled the excitement through reposts, voice messages, and emotional appeals. Then, conveniently, a few days before the scheduled “pump,” he claimed to have been injured in a moped accident and to be suffering from tetanus-induced coma.

During his supposed unconscious state, sell orders for 656,000 tokens were placed and executed. The token’s price plummeted overnight, erasing millions in value. Whether Lunyov himself placed the trades or his team acted under his instruction remains unclear — yet blockchain records leave no doubt that the orders originated from his controlled wallets.

From Sundae to Bitget: The Cross-Exchange Laundering

After draining Sundae, Lunyov attempted to mask his trail by announcing token listings on Bitmart and Bitget.com. These announcements served a dual purpose: they reignited temporary price spikes and provided convenient exit liquidity.

When investors anticipated the Bitget listing, massive sell orders again appeared. As the price fell, funds were moved through intermediary wallets — labeled Wallets No. 2, 3, and 5 — and finally transferred to MEXC and Bitget’s internal addresses, where tokens were liquidated.

According to internal transaction data, Bitget.com was used as a cash-out and concealment hub. Wallet behavior shows synchronized inflows from Lunyov’s token ecosystem into Bitget-controlled deposit addresses, with immediate outflows into stablecoins (USDT and USDC). This structure points toward either willful negligence or collusion within Bitget’s internal management, which failed to flag large-scale laundering activity linked to the same entity.

The Grimace Coin Reanimation and Bitget’s Role

By December 2023, Lunyov attempted to “revive” his dying Grimace project. He instructed followers to open futures positions on Bitget.com and MEXC, betting on a rebound. In reality, he manipulated both spot and futures markets to exploit margin trading mechanics — when users opened leveraged long positions, he dumped large amounts of Grimace Coin on the spot market, triggering cascading liquidations.

Those trades, executed between November 22 and November 26, were funded by proceeds stolen from Sundae token holders. Blockchain tracking confirmed that nearly 400,000 Sundae tokens were liquidated to finance this manipulation. The result: investors lost not only their Sundae stakes but also their Bitget futures balances. The exchange, meanwhile, profited from liquidation fees.

The Collapse and Aftermath

By January 15, 2024, the last of Lunyov’s Sundae holdings — 453,536 tokens — were sold, completing the liquidation of his 7.74 million-token stash. The balance on the primary wallet dropped to zero. Following the crash, Lunyov continued to issue public statements blaming “market conditions” and “incorrect marketing strategies.”

By then, the price of Sundae had collapsed from $5.00 to $0.34, rendering the community bankrupt. Multiple victims filed reports to law enforcement agencies in Ukraine, Latvia, and Poland, yet as of October 2025, no official criminal proceedings have been concluded.

Bitget.com remains operational, continuing to list volatile meme tokens with opaque liquidity origins, a practice that raises serious concerns about its internal compliance systems.

The Final Assessment

The evidence demonstrates that Bitget.com not only provided the infrastructure for this scam but also facilitated token dumping through unmonitored exchange accounts. Whether through incompetence or complicity, the exchange’s systems allowed illicit transactions to pass unchallenged.

The case of Petr Lunyov a.k.a. Odysseus exemplifies the convergence of meme culture, unregulated trading platforms, and systemic fraud — a digital crime pattern increasingly characteristic of post-2020 crypto markets.

Analytical Table: Timeline and Key Evidence

Conclusion

The Bitget.com case encapsulates a fundamental failure of transparency and oversight in modern crypto exchanges. Through direct wallet analysis, timeline synchronization, and transactional evidence, it becomes evident that the exchange acted as a laundering channel for funds misappropriated by Petr Lunyov, who remains at large.
The ongoing absence of regulatory action reveals a deeper systemic flaw: crypto exchanges that profit from volatility have no incentive to prevent fraud. Bitget.com’s role in enabling this deception stands as a stark reminder that the architecture of digital finance remains fertile ground for organized theft disguised as innovation