Former Coinbase manager charged with insider trading

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the SEC had a former Coinbase product manager arrested for insider trading. 

Coinbase: former product manager arrested for insider trading

Ishan Wahi, known to have been a fine analyst as well as product manager at the exchange Coinbase, was arrested on a warrant from the Securities and Exchange Commission jointly with the Southern District of New York. 

Watcher.Guru, a popular news aggregator in the crypto world, also reports the news:

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 US authorities have reportedly arrested former #Coinbase Product Manager Ishan Wahi for insider trading.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) July 21, 2022

The facts show Wahi having discussed sensitive information about tokens used by the company he was serving for and other things with his brother and a friend, who allegedly profited from what he said. 

Bloomberg expressed how Nikhil Wahi, brother of the arrested man, and Sameer Ramini his friend, were informed with fresh news about certain tokens, news that if learned before others could have made the two of them quite a lot of money. 

The gains were there, and they were in the million-dollar range. 

From June 2021 to April 2022, the two set up several operations, on the strength of the sensitive information in their possession through Wahi. 

Authorities are also investigating the actions of the two by verifying whether or not they in turn disseminated sensitive information that could have created any kind of economic advantage. 

“The stock trader was not at the center of the investigation and will not face charges”.

This leaked from the US communications company, which released the news specifying that the action involves only criminal acts by associates or employees without representing practices or in any way the will of Coinbase itself, which is uninvolved in any attempt at market manipulation. 

Coinbase’s judicial history

Coinbase is no stranger to legal turmoil, and for instance, William Hinman, the company’s former director of finance, and other company officials and former employees are under investigation and will go to trial for manipulating the market by favoring some tokens over others. 

The occasion, as they say, makes the man a thief, and specifically there are fears of decisions and moves to favor more capitalized digital currencies, such as BTC and ETH, at the expense of others. 

The doubt is that Hinman had a conflict of interest and took advantage of the choices he made because he was at the center of a dominant position that could alter investor behavior. 

One of the allegations centers on a speech he made in 2018 that the authority says may have manipulated the market when he declared that Ethereum was not so safe, causing the crypto’s price to explode. 

Empower Oversight has filed charges in the specific case, but the investigation has also expanded to include his entire actions over time and those of his associates.

The statements or transactions filed by the manager and others were mostly about ETH and XRP, and this helps to intensify suspicions, showing a peculiar focus on specific tokens.