Former Coinbase executive pleads guilty to insider-trading charges

Former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi pleaded guilty to two counts of insider trading. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release.

“Wahi is the first to plead guilty in an insider-trading case related to the cryptocurrency market,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

From October 2020, the defendant worked on Coinbase’s listings. From June 2021 to April 2022, Wahi violated the platform’s confidentiality rules and provided insider information to his brother Nihal Wahi and Samir Ramani.

They repeatedly traded digital assets based on the information in order to profit, according to the Justice Department press release. In April, this drew attention on Twitter, and Coinbase launched an internal investigation.

The court is scheduled to pronounce the sentence for the former Coinbase executive on May 10, 2023. He faces up to 40 years in prison.

In July 2022, law enforcement arrested Ishan Wahi, Nihal Wahi and Samir Ramani. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud in connection with an insider-trading scheme involving crypto assets, resulting in profits of at least $1.5 million.

In September, Nihal Wahi pleaded guilty. He agreed with the prosecutors’ theory that he traded on the basis of nonpublic information about a planned Coinbase listing of digital assets.