ZachXBT Says 95% of LAB Token Is Insider-Controlled as Investigation Exposes Multi-Front Retail Rug – Bitcoin News

A $6 Billion Project Built on Hidden Supply

LAB launched its token generation event in October 2025, positioning itself as an AI-powered trading terminal. In early May 2026, the token surged over 350% in under 72 hours, briefly touching a $6 billion fully diluted valuation ( FDV) before crashing more than 65% within hours, a move ZachXBT alleges was engineered in coordination with an unknown market maker and Bitget insiders.

The investigation shows wallets linked to the LAB team deposited 96 million LAB tokens into Bitget accounts shortly before the pump. Between March and April 2026, insiders accumulated 226 million LAB in Bitget addresses, where the tokens sat dormant. Then, as Bitcoin.com News reported, 100 million LAB worth approximately $480 million moved out to 10 freshly created wallets in a 12-hour window between May 11 and 12.

Four Ways the Team Is Extracting From Retail

ZachXBT laid out multiple concurrent extraction mechanisms running simultaneously:

(i) Private OTC loans: Co-founder Vova Sadkov signed loan agreements carrying a 7.5% monthly interest rate for six months, with OTC deals priced at 60–80% discounts to market. Some arrangements required key opinion leaders (KOLs) to post multiple times promoting the project before their tokens could unlock, a shill requirement baked directly into the financial terms.

(ii) Vesting changes: The LAB team unilaterally extended the cliff period for public sale participants from three months to nine months without buyer consent. Participants who agreed to specific lockup terms found them changed after the fact.

(iii) Marketing reward clawbacks: Creators who ran promotional campaigns for LAB have reported waiting months for payouts, with no clarification from the team on timelines or whether payments will come at all.

(iv) Opaque market-making: ZachXBT identified a market-making agreement between LAB and an unnamed counterparty whose terms were never disclosed to token holders, a structure that allowed coordinated price management without any transparency.

The Bitget Angle

In all of this, ZachXBT specifically named Bitget, calling the exchange part of a “Chinese CEX cartel” that enables these schemes to operate. He also named Shawn Liu, not publicly-facing CEO Gracy Chen, as the behind-the-scenes operator, alleging that Liu facilitates these arrangements while Chen serves as the public face of the exchange.

ZachXBT also posted a $10,000 bounty targeting LAB founder Vova Sadkov, seeking contracts, chat records, or insider documents from the market-making activities across exchanges. The developments follow his exposé of the RAVE token, in which he alleged that a group controlling more than 90% of its circulating supply coordinated trades across exchanges to engineer a pump-and-dump.

LAB founders Vova Sadkov and co-founder Mark previously ran Eesee, a project that left investors feeling abandoned when the team pivoted away without delivering on commitments.