The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of
New York (“SDNY”) has brought the first-ever wire fraud
charges against three individuals for insider trading of digital
tokens on Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform. In a
parallel action against the same three individuals, the Securities
and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) brought a civil case in
the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington
alleging that the cryptocurrencies at issue are securities which
were unlawfully traded based on material, nonpublic information.
Both actions could have sweeping implications in a rapidly evolving
area of the law.
The SDNY indictment alleges that Ishan Wahi, a Coinbase employee
involved in listing crypto assets on Coinbase's exchanges,
leaked confidential business information to his brother, Nikhil
Wahi, and his friend, Sameer Ramani. According to the indictment,
Ishan told the other co-defendants about which assets Coinbase was
planning to list and
