Former Coinbase product manager Ishan’s brother sentenced to prison

Nikhil Wahi has been sentenced to 10 months prison over his illegal Crypto activity as an “insider trader”. 

Nikhil Wahi is the brother of Ishan Wahi. Ishan is a former Coinbase product manager. According to reports, Ishan was misusing his power as a Coinbase official and was sharing internal information with his brother Nikhil. Nikhil was using that information to invest in Crypto assets to make huge profits with very less risk. 

Initially, in July of the last year, both of these guys were arrested over their involvement in “insider crypto assets trading”. Indeed Ishan was giving tips to Nikhil about the new coin listing on the Coinbase exchange in advance. 

Allegedly, Nikhil traded 40 different crypto assets on behalf of the tips that he received from Ishan, and in this way, he made a $900,000 net profit. 

Sameer Ramani, a friend of Nikhil, was also involved in this insider trading and managed to generate a net $1.5 million profit. 

On 10 Jan 2023, Nikhil said “I made a huge mistake, a terrible mistake. It’s something that I will have to live with forever.”, During his appearance in the US District Judge Loretta Preska. 

Already in September of the last year, Nikhil admitted his mistake. But the opposite of it, Ishan Wahi pleaded not guilty in August.

Initially, it was expected that the Court would impose a 16 months prison sentence on Nikhil. Prosecutors in this case still expect that Nikhil may face 20 years of maximum jail punishment over a wire fraud connection. But, for now, after 10 months of jail punishment, he will be deported to India. 

Recently Crypto Twitter users raised questions over Insider trading activities & policies to prohibit such kinds of illegal activities. In particular, a Binance Crypto exchange spokesperson confirmed that no one Binance employee can do insider trading because, alongside the policies, the team also keeps tracking them on different Crypto platforms. 

Read also: Binance confirms its employees can’t participate in insider trading