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Former Coinbase product manager pleads guilty to insider trading case

Former Coinbase product manager pleads guilty to insider trading case
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Ishan Wahi, former product manager at Coinbase Global Inc. , charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a case that prosecutors have described as the first cryptocurrency-related insider trading case.

According to a Reuters report, prosecutors alleged that Wahi disclosed private information to his brother, Nikhil, and his friend, Sameer Ramani, regarding impending announcements of new digital assets that Coinbase will enable users to trade. The announcement later causes the value of assets to skyrocket, allowing Nikhil and Sameer Raman to generate ill-gotten gains of at least $1.5 million. Nikhil Wahi and Ramani were accused of using Ethereum (ETH) blockchain wallets to acquire and trade digital assets ahead of Coinbase’s announcements.

“I learned that Sameer Ramani and Nikhil Wahi would use this information to make trading decisions,” Ishan Wahi admitted during his hearing Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. “It was wrong to misappropriate and publicize Coinbase property,” he added.

As part of the plea bargain, Ishan Wahi agreed to be sentenced to between 36 and 47 months in prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 10. His brother Nikhil Wahi has already pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to 10 months in prison, while Ramani remains at large. Coinbase has reportedly shared its findings from an internal investigation into the trading with prosecutors.

Related: Crypto exchanges take on insider trading after recent convictions

On January 10, Cointelegraph reported that Ishan Wahi’s brother, Nikhil Wahi, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for conspiracy to defraud. Nikhil Wahi pleaded guilty in September to initiating the deals based on confidential information he got from his brother, Ishan Wahi.

In the case of Nikhil Wahi, US prosecutors have suggested a prison sentence of 10 to 16 months due to the fact that he made nearly $900,000 from his illegal activities. However, his lawyers proposed an alternative outcome, claiming that the driving force behind the crime was his parents’ reimbursement for his college education and that he had no prior criminal history.