SEC Charges Former Coinbase Product Manager With Insider Trading

Ishan Wahi “repeatedly tipped the timing and content of upcoming listing announcements” to his brother, Nikhil Wahi, and his friend, Sameer Ramani, the SEC claims in the complaint

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share
  • The SEC alleges that a former Coinbase product manager and people close to him traded cryptocurrencies based on confidential information
  • The insider trading profits totaled more than $1.1 million, the SEC claims

The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced insider trading charges against a former Coinbase employee Ishan Wahi, his brother and his friend Thursday. 

The SEC alleges that the group “perpetrated a scheme to trade ahead of multiple announcements regarding certain crypto assets that would be made available for trading on the Coinbase platform,” according to the statement released Thursday. 

The SEC claims that Wahi, a former Coinbase product manager, traded cryptoassets based on confidential information he obtained from helping coordinate public token listings on the exchange. 

Ishan “repeatedly tipped the timing and content of upcoming listing announcements” to his brother, Nikhil Wahi, and his friend, Sameer Ramani, the SEC claims in the complaint. 

“Ahead of those announcements, which usually resulted in an increase in the assets’ prices, Nikhil Wahi and Ramani allegedly purchased at least 25 crypto assets, at least nine of which were securities, and then typically sold them shortly after the announcements for a profit,” the complaint read. “The long-running insider trading scheme generated illicit profits totaling more than $1.1 million.”

The SEC has not yet charged any issuers or exchanges associated with the nine tokens it classified as securities.

In April, Coinbase said in a tweet the exchange was publishing a list of potential assets that could be listed on the exchange in the second quarter of 2022. 

Jordan Fish, who hosts the “Up Only” podcast, tweeted shortly after that he found an ETH address that apparently purchased “hundreds of thousands of dollars of tokens” of the tokens listed in the report ahead of it being published. 

Loading Tweet..

This is a developing story.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Monad SR Report Graphic.png

Research

Monad is a new Layer 1 blockchain designed as a high performance, EVM-compatible platform.

article-image

Engineers from MetaMask, Coinbase, Google, and the Ethereum Foundation make the case for onchain AI agents via ERC-8004

article-image

Legacy payments firm partners with Anchorage Digital to issue a dollar-pegged token under new US stablecoin law

by Blockworks /
article-image

As Solana ETFs launch but network REV trends lower, Jito sits at the intersection of new capital inflows and microstructure improvements

article-image

The Truth Social parent will integrate Crypto.com Derivatives North America, allowing users to trade prediction contracts under federal oversight

by Blockworks /
article-image

Partnership surpasses $2 billion in staked assets and adds support for new Proof-of-Stake networks

by Blockworks /
article-image

The tokenization leader will merge with Cantor Equity Partners II, becoming the first public firm focused on securities tokenization

by Blockworks /