Former Coinbase official pleads not guilty in federal court: Insider trading case

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Ishan Wahi pleaded not guilty in the ongoing two cases against him & his two close persons. 

Ishan Wahi is a former Coinbase product manager. In May, he was arrested by US authorities during his attempt to board a flight to India. Allegedly, Ishan provided internal information about Coinbase exchange with his close relatives to make money.

On 3 August, Reuters reported that Coinbase’s former product manager pleaded not guilty to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy and two counts of wire fraud in a Manhattan federal court. 

However, not much information came from the media reports, about the ongoing development works but these things are showing some Ishan is standing in this case confidently and may bring some better outcomes for him. Perhaps the case is in the initial phase, so it will be too early to comment on the future judgment. 

Two cases against Ishan Wahi

At present two cases are going on. The first case is Insider trading. US investigation authorities are taking their actions in this case, where Ishan has been accused of providing new crypto asset listing details in advance to his brother & friend. Reportedly, His brother & friend made a $1.5 million profit between June 2021 and April 2022. Here these are only part of the allegations, so here we have to wait for the final outcomes of this case.

Secondly, The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil case against Ishan Wahi. According to the SEC agency, Ishan & his accomplice did trade with nine of the 25 cryptocurrencies, which were securities. 

Many crypto experts talked about this lawsuit by the SEC agency against Coinbase’s former product manager and the majority of them criticized SEC’s action. The majority of the people said that if 9 mentioned crypto assets were securities then why Nasdaq listed public crypto exchange Coinbase was allowed to facilitate the trade of these particular assets? 

Read also: US Senators proposes a bill to grant authority to CFTC to regulate crypto