Former Coinbase Crypto Exchange Manager Pleads Not Guilty in Insider Trading Case

The former manager of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, previously sued by the US SEC, has pleaded not guilty to insider trading.

The former Manager, Ishan Wahi, has previously made profits with his brothers and friends, Nikhil Wahi and Sameer Ramani, from trading cryptocurrencies to up to US$1.1 million.
The SEC considers Ishan to have cheated because he took advantage of his position as an "insider" of Coinbase, by disclosing complete information regarding crypto assets that will be listed and using them for profit.

Insider Trading on the Coinbase Crypto Exchange

The US SEC lawsuit reveals that Ishan Wahi had repeatedly provided material nonpublic information about the Coinbase listing announcement to the two individuals from June 2021 to April 2022.Nikhil and Sameer have used this information to trade through 14 transactions and rake in over a million US dollars.

According to prosecutors, the two men had used an Ethereum crypto wallet to store the crypto asset prior to Coinbase's official announcement, then sold the asset for a profit.Based on the Cryptonews report, Ishan and Nikhil have pleaded not guilty in the US SEC lawsuit. Meanwhile, Sameer is currently still at large and his whereabouts are unknown.

The defense is based on the assumption that crypto assets are not securities or commodities, so this could impact American jurisprudence regarding the legal status of cryptocurrencies.“The message with these accusations is clear: fraud is fraud, whether it takes place on the blockchain or on Wall Street. The Southern District of New York will continue to relentlessly bring fraudsters to justice, wherever we can find them," US Attorney Damian Williams said after charges were filed against the defendants.

According to Ishan's Attorney, David Miller, the lawsuit should be dropped because insider trading requires the involvement of securities or commodities. Meanwhile, what Ishan did was not like that.However, the Prosecutor, Noah Solowiejczyk, disagreed with the defense because the information Ishan shared was non-public.

Currently, the demands filed by the US SEC are still civil in nature, where each defendant has been asked for a bail of US $ 1 million.