Yes, crypto Twitter, the FBI is reading your tweets - The Verge

After Twitter influencer Cobie tweeted about some suspicious trading, the SDNY has indicted three people for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

It appears that a crypto Twitter user named Cobie influenced the FBI into bringing an insider trading case. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is bringing an indictment against a former Coinbase employee, who allegedly tipped his brother and his buddy about which assets were about to list on Coinbase — leading to $1.5 million in “realized and unrealized gains,” according to the indictment.

This is the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency markets, says U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, in a statement.

Ishan Wahi, the Coinbase employee who was charged, was involved in listing new crypto assets on Coinbase’s exchange. When Coinbase announces that a new token will be listed, that token often pops in value — which means that the company told employees to keep silent about Coinbase’s listing plans. Wahi started working for Coinbase in October 2020. In August 2021, he was allowed access to a channel where Coinbase employees discussed listing new projects with details like “exact announcement / launch dates + timelines.”

According to the indictment, Wahi told his brother and friend which purchases to make just before those tokens were announced as being listed by Coinbase. Nikhil Wahi and Sameer Ramani allegedly bought at least 25 assets in advance of at least 14 Coinbase listing announcements.

On April 12th, Cobie tweeted, “Found an ETH address that bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of tokens exclusively featured in the Coinbase Asset Listing post about 24 hours before it was published, rofl.” According to the indictment, Cobie was tweeting about a wallet owned by Ramani. On April 13th, Coinbase’s chief security officer replied to the tweet to say the company was investigating.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/21/23273103/crypto-coinbase-insider-trading-sdny-never-tweet

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