Original author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
On May 7, blockchain detective ZachXBT publicly offered a $10,000 reward for the identification information of Vova Sadkov, the founder of the LAB token, including his passport, government-issued ID, and internal documents such as market maker 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, and subsequently chose to escalate the situation publicly. In his tweet, he specifically pointed out that vsadkovv was cultivating a personal image by posting "philosophical thinking" content on social media while simultaneously engaging in token price manipulation, stating that such behavior "is 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 the price anomalies of LAB as manipulation involving pump and dump.
A premeditated price manipulation
LAB is a multi-chain trading platform project that supports spot, limit order, and perpetual contract trading across multiple chains, with a focus on AI-driven analytics tools. According to estimates from multiple on-chain analysts, approximately 95% of LAB's token supply is concentrated in the hands of the team and insiders. Specter has listed at least six wallet addresses associated with the team that still hold a significant amount of LAB tokens.
Looking at the price chart, LAB traded sideways at a low level between $0.2 and $0.5 throughout early to late April. Around April 28th, it began a gradual upward climb, breaking through the $1 and $2 levels, before accelerating to nearly $5 on May 4th, representing a gain of over 1300% in nearly 30 days. However, the price action was volatile, with several instances of significant pullbacks after the initial surge.
According to Arkham's monitoring, around April 24th, LAB core-related addresses began intensively transferring funds to three Bitget deposit addresses (0xDd7..., 0x659...). Statistics show that these two addresses received a total of 100 million LAB tokens, worth approximately $64.96 million, which were subsequently deposited into the Bitget hot wallet.
On April 25th, this address transferred 18 million LAB tokens, worth approximately $15.39 million, to a Bitget deposit address in two separate transactions. Analysts suggest that with a circulating supply of 230.4 million LAB tokens, the amount received by the Bitget deposit address at that time represented about 50% of the total circulating supply. Such a large influx of tokens into trading platforms during a price surge may foreshadow subsequent selling to realize profits or market makers adjusting their positions.
According to Specter's analysis, starting in May, addresses associated with the LAB project showed a series of highly suspicious on-chain operations.
On May 5th, an address (0xb61d2e77...f18a103e5) conducted multiple multicall and transfer operations involving interactions with SushiSwap V3 and contract creation. More notably, on May 4th, another set of addresses (0x11F9b0f4...DF8e61Df) initiated at least nine consecutive deposit transactions with Tornado Cash Router, each amounting to 100 ETH, totaling at least 900 ETH. Additionally, there were one deposit of 10 ETH and another of 1 ETH, totaling over 911 ETH.
After being exposed: The project team continued to transfer large amounts of tokens.
It's worth noting that even after ZachXBT publicly offered a bounty to investigate, the LAB project team's on-chain operations did not cease. According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, on May 7th, an address received 3.66 million LAB tokens, worth approximately $14.07 million, from the LAB project team's multisignature address (0x36F...0C291).
The source address of these funds traces back to the deployment address of the LAB tokens. Subsequently, this address transferred 2.125 million tokens to two contract addresses, the purpose of which is currently unclear.
In terms of price, LAB plummeted from nearly $5 to $3 after ZachXBT made its accusations, but quickly rebounded in less than a night, and was quoted at about $4.64011 as of May 8, almost completely recovering its losses.
In October 2025, LAB announced the completion of a $5 million funding 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, Presto Labs, and others. The funds will be used to accelerate infrastructure, product development, and global expansion.
Price manipulation in the crypto industry is drawing wider regulatory attention. In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 10 executives of market makers such as Gotbit and Vortex, accusing them of manipulating token prices through bot trading. Gotbit's founder pleaded guilty and agreed to forfeit $23 million.
Whether the LAB incident will trigger similar law enforcement action depends on whether ZachXBT's bounty investigation can gather sufficient evidence of identity and contracts.
As of press time, neither the LAB project team nor vsadkovv has issued a public response to the aforementioned allegations.
