NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) – A former chief product officer at Coinbase Global and two others have been charged with wire fraud in the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency, U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan said on Thursday. .
Ishan Wahi, the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency exchange, and his brother Nikhil Wahi were arrested Thursday in Seattle.
They and a third defendant, their friend Sameer Ramani, who remains at large, also face civil charges from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Prosecutors said Ishan Wahi shared confidential information about upcoming announcements of new cryptocurrency assets that Coinbase would allow users to trade through its exchange. Her brother and Ramani reportedly exchanged at least 14 times before such announcements between June 2021 and April 2022, prosecutors said.
Nikhil Wahi and Ramani used Ethereum blockchain wallets to acquire the assets ahead of Coinbase’s announcements and then sold those assets for a profit, prosecutors said.
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Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Mark Porter
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