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On-chain investigators ZachXBT and SpecterAnalyst publicly accused $LAB, the token linked to LABtrade and founder Vova Sadkov, of coordinated market manipulation involving centralized exchanges including Bitget. The allegations focus on large LAB deposits to Bitget before the pump, pre-funded gas distributions to new wallets, a low-float token structure, and the lack of a detailed public rebuttal from LABtrade as of May 7, 2026.
You are not buying a token. You are buying a carefully tuned exit machine.
A $1.098 billion market cap sitting on roughly $3.884 million of on-chain liquidity. This is not sarcasm; it is arithmetic. Liquidity equals about 0.35% of market cap. In plain English: a few million dollars can move the so-called billion-dollar project like a thin penny stock with a LinkedIn account.
While retail watched the candle move from around $0.33 toward $4 and imagined the next 100x, the basic structure looked different: retail did not catch the trade. The trade caught retail.
0x7ec4...25593a.@vsadkovv), 26, Dubai-based, previously active in MedTech, EduTech, eesee.io, and the earlier LAB identity Memes Lab.At the cited snapshot, LAB traded around $2.11, up 208.81% over 24 hours, with a reported market cap of $1.098 billion, FDV of $2.112 billion, and about 17,400 on-chain holders.
That holder count matters. A supposedly billion-dollar crypto asset with only about 17,400 on-chain holders does not look like broad organic adoption. It looks concentrated.
LAB’s total supply is 1 billion tokens. Circulating supply is reportedly about 7.7%. The remaining 92.3% sits with the team, investors, vesting contracts, or related allocations. Low float plus high FDV is not a small design flaw; it is the condition that allows a small amount of capital to appear like a major market repricing.
Phemex described the same mechanism more politely: the low-float structure helped explain how a 364% daily surge could occur with large reported volume. In simpler terms, the tradable float was small enough for a few actors to choreograph a dramatic move.
The more alarming number is liquidity: $3.884 million on-chain. A pool that thin supporting a billion-dollar valuation is not a deep market. It is a price tag. It is like someone listing an apartment for $100 million and then using the listing price as proof that the building is worth $100 million.
LAB appears to have used the same trick, with Bitget allegedly serving as one of the venues where the performance was staged.
SpecterAnalyst published an X thread identifying six wallets alleged to be connected to the LAB team:
0x7Cfd8d2d8626B287bEA569b5e65AB5CBb75E9265
0x78a79D0fa0Eaf58741f5Bde7E05b5CC8F33D24d3
0x36FC85Ec486C254c9564d66de8c4210a1A20C291
0xf79ff8a5052E969a6d13E18c4E439fE5202B02Fa
0xB4b74D63F30076870d54aB9E8E6a7D18293273c3
0xe03722dedBf090Ad7A1C8F82ceB86637053E21dd
The timeline matters.
First wave — April 8, 2026: wallet 0xe037... allegedly deposited 40 million LAB into Bitget. At the time, LAB was still near $0.33, before the vertical move. The transfer was worth about $13.6 million. A team-linked wallet moving eight figures of token inventory to a centralized exchange before the chart wakes up is not a neutral fact.
Second wave — around April 24, 2026: wallets 0xDd77BFbDc11Cd37fD255AE35A4ac39Df1F9d570a and 0x6593aa6c31C88397c37f71259625EC92Fe4EE0bF allegedly deposited another 96 million LAB into Bitget, worth roughly $63 million. Around one week later, on May 1, the pump began.
The most important detail is the gas. SpecterAnalyst noted that roughly one week before the pump, gas fees were distributed from 0x50f2... and 0x0559... to a batch of new wallets, with 0.14 BNB sent to each.
That is the operational fingerprint. A normal market does not need a production crew handing fuel to fresh wallets before showtime. A coordinated operation does.
There is another detail: the aggregator wallet 0x11fc12b988933966688d33B70651B5f2f450963C was allegedly involved not only with $LAB, but also with $SkyAI, which reportedly gained around 1,000% over 30 days. Same hands, same choreography, different ticker.
This is not the first time Bitget has appeared in similar allegations.
In the RAVE case, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said an investigation had started, and the bounty was reportedly raised from $10,000 to $25,000. The public market, however, did not receive a detailed final explanation.
In the LAB thread, ZachXBT directly called out Gracy Chen and asked where the promised investigation results were after several weeks. That question matters because the repeated appearance of Bitget in low-float pump allegations creates a pattern that cannot be dismissed with a generic “internal review.”
The incentive structure is obvious. If a manipulated low-float token generates more than $200 million in 24-hour volume, even a modest fee rate can create meaningful revenue. Add derivatives, forced liquidations, and extreme volatility, and the machine becomes more profitable.
Until Bitget publishes detailed investigation results, “internal review” means little. In crypto, that phrase often means: say the correct words, wait out the outrage, and move on to the next ticker.
Vova Sadkov is central to the public narrative.
The image is polished: 26 years old, Dubai-based, serial entrepreneur, “two successful exits,” former EduTech and MedTech founder, previously associated with eesee.io, and now the face of a multi-chain AI trading terminal. LAB was previously known as Memes Lab. The original narrative was closer to a meme-coin trading product before being upgraded into AI × multi-chain trading × DeSci.
That kind of narrative remix is common in Web3. When one sector gets hot, the pitch deck grows a new limb.
The more important issue is Sadkov’s behavior during and after the pump. While on-chain investigators asked about wallets and market-making arrangements, Sadkov was publishing founder-thought content on LinkedIn and X, including posts about VC being dead, Travis Kalanick and cancellation, DEX market share, and founder mythology.
Individually, those posts sound polished. The timing is the problem. When a project is publicly accused of coordinated CEX market manipulation, the useful response is not a meditation on entrepreneurship. The useful response is wallet disclosure, market-maker disclosure, an audit, and a live AMA.
ZachXBT summarized the issue bluntly: the founder was spreading philosophical noise while allegedly participating in CEX-based market manipulation that harmed retail; he ignored DMs and deleted posts.
Ignoring DMs plus deleting historical posts is a familiar pattern in crypto blowups. When someone becomes abstract at the exact moment they need to be specific, that is not philosophy. That is fog.
Philosophy is for hard questions. It is not a tarp for 40 million LAB moving into Bitget.
The structure is not complicated.
Project team: The team controls the overwhelming majority of non-circulating supply. If even a small slice is sold during the pump, the proceeds can be enormous. At a billion-dollar headline valuation, a few percentage points becomes real money. Early token cost basis is usually close to zero.
Market makers and promotional partners: They may have contractual upside. That is why ZachXBT is offering a bounty for alleged market-making agreements. If such contracts exist, they may show fee splits, price support promises, inventory terms, or other arrangements that turn “market making” into coordinated price engineering.
Bitget: The exchange may benefit from spot fees, derivatives volume, and liquidation activity. Thin float plus violent volatility is a liquidation machine.
Retail: Retail receives the marketing package: AI trading terminal, DeSci, Dubai founder, strategic investors, a community round oversubscribed by 3,013%, and KOLs pointing at the candle. Retail thinks it is buying a project. It may be buying the “exit liquidity” box on someone else’s spreadsheet.
LAB now has three plausible endings.
The third path is available. As of May 7, 2026, however, LABtrade had not provided a detailed public rebuttal. Silence is not proof, but in crypto, silence next to an on-chain trail is rarely a good look.
No article can repair a loss. But several practical steps are available.
First, track the alleged team wallets on BscScan or another block explorer. Large transfers leave footprints.
Second, stop being sedated by founder essays. When a project is accused of market manipulation, the correct answer is not more thought leadership. It is wallets, audits, counterparties, contracts, and public accountability.
Third, share ZachXBT’s bounty post. A $10,000 bounty may not be life-changing for an insider, but documents often appear when public pressure rises.
Most importantly: next time you see low float, top-tier backers, AI narrative, and thin liquidity, calculate the liquidity-to-market-cap ratio before looking at the candle. If on-chain liquidity is below 1% of market cap, the story may be different, but the machine often rhymes.
LAB is not the first. It will not be the last. But you do not have to be the next exit.
No court has ruled that LAB is a scam. What exists now is a serious public allegation from ZachXBT and SpecterAnalyst: team-linked wallets allegedly moved more than $76 million worth of LAB to Bitget before the pump, while gas was distributed to new wallets in advance. LABtrade has not yet issued a detailed public rebuttal.
As of May 7, 2026, LABtrade had not published a full public response to the wallet allegations. The key issue is not whether the website or social accounts exist, but whether the team can explain the wallet flows.
Recovery is difficult unless there is a legal action, exchange freeze, or identifiable counterparty. Users should preserve transaction hashes, exchange records, screenshots, and communications. For large losses, a crypto-focused lawyer or licensed investigator may be useful.
The allegation is that large amounts of LAB were deposited into Bitget before the pump. ZachXBT has also linked Bitget to previous suspicious low-float token events such as RAVE. Bitget’s role has not been legally proven, but the repeated appearance of the exchange is why investigators are asking questions.
A credible response would include wallet ownership disclosures, market-maker contracts, third-party audit results, token allocation records, and a public explanation for the Bitget deposits and pre-pump gas distributions. Generic “we are investigating” language is not enough.