Ishan Wahi Not Guilty: Will He Forgive Coinbase for The False Allegations?

Ex-Coinbase Product Manager pleads not guilty in Crypto Insider trading case.

A former Coinbase product manager has pleaded not guilty to insider trading. Ishan Wahi, 32, pleaded not guilty in a Wednesday hearing to charges of wire fraud which allegedly occurred while working at the crypto exchange Coinbase, Reuters has reported.

The Justice Department charged Wahi with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with an insider trading scheme in an indictment filed July 21 in New York.

According to the US authorities, on at least 14 occasions, Ishan knew in advance both that Coinbase planned to list particular crypto assets and the timing of its public announcements of those asset listings.

He misappropriated that Coinbase confidential information by tipping either his brother, Nikhil or Ramani, "so that they could place profitable trades in those crypto assets in advance of Coinbase's public listing announcements".

The defendants made illegal trades in at least 25 different crypto assets and realized ill-gotten gains totaling approximately US$1.5 million.

To conceal their purchases of crypto assets in advance of Coinbase listing announcements, Nikhil and Ramani used accounts at centralized exchanges held in the names of others and transferred funds, crypto assets, and proceeds of their scheme through multiple anonymous Ethereum blockchain wallets.