• About & Contact Us
  • SEO Community

Ulancer.com

    • Latest Stories

      What is new?

    • Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in London

      September 27, 2018

    • Rally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series A

      September 27, 2018

  • News
  • How to’s
  • Writing
  • Startups
  • Jobs
  • More
    • CMS Tools
    • APPS
    • Web Resources
      • Advertising
      • Firefox
      • Scripts
      • Tools

Coinbase is investigating claims of insider trading from its Bitcoin Cash launch

  • by Ulancer Contributor
  • In News
  • — 20 Dec, 2017


Coinbase is investigating whether its employees took advantage of inside knowledge to profit on the launch of bitcoin cash (BCH) when it was added the popular crypto exchange.

The company, which recently raised $100 million at a valuation of $1.6 billion, finally added support for BCH — a fork of bitcoin — on Tuesday after much demand from users. But, in true Coinbase fashion, the launch was mired with service outages as the price of the new addition fluctuated wildly.

The price of BCH hit a high of $8,500 on Coinbase and its GDAX service for professional investors, which was almost three times higher than the $3,500 price on all other exchanges. That led to calls of insider trading from Coinbase staff who, in theory, could have profited by buying BCH on other exchanges in the knowledge that it was about to be added to Coinbase, a move that would (and did) trigger increased trading volume and a higher price as the exchange’s 10 million-plus users got a piece of the action.

Now Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has confirmed that the company is investigating the events around the price spike.

“Given the price increase in the hours leading up the announcement, we will be conducting an investigation into this matter. If we find evidence of any employee or contractor violating our policies — directly or indirectly — I will not hesitate to terminate the employee immediately and take appropriate legal action,” he wrote on Medium.

Armstrong said that Coinbase staff, friends and family have been forbidden from trading BCH for the past month while it formulated plans to list the coin on its exchange. That, he said, is line with policy over ‘inside info,’ including when Coinbase added support for Ether last year and Litecoin this year.

“We’ve had a trading policy in place for some time at Coinbase. The policy prohibits employees and contractors from trading on “material non-public information”, such as when a new asset will be added to our platform. In addition to trading restrictions, it prohibits communication of material non-public information outside the company. This includes to friends and family,” Armstrong explained.

It’s a messy end to what should have been an important moment for Coinbase, which this month hit the top spot in the U.S. App Store thanks to a bitcoin frenzy that has seen the cryptocurrency hit record highs of close to $20,000 in recent weeks. Instead, the BCH has launched has ended in frustration for users who were either unable to get their hands on the coin, or were forced to pay way over the odds for it.


News source

You might also like...

  • Apple issues fix for HomeKit vulnerability impacting smart locks and other devices 8 Dec, 2017
  • Enjoius raises $1.4 million to bring its party planning services to you 28 Nov, 2017
  • Amazon introduces an AWS graph database service called Amazon Neptune 29 Nov, 2017
  • Spotify and Tencent agree to swap stakes in their music businesses 8 Dec, 2017
  • Previous story Mobike lands investment from Line to grow its bike-sharing service in Japan
  • Next story PayPal backs pan-European savings deposit marketplace Raisin
  • RSS
    Receive Freebies & Latest Posts Directly To Your Email - it's Free!

    • Recent Posts
    • Most Popular
    • Comments
    • 7hrCggmJ-AMMeet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in LondonSeptember 27, 2018
    • oNo38LV2tQIRally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series ASeptember 27, 2018
    • Nearby.gifBerkanan is a Bluetooth-powered group messaging appSeptember 27, 2018
    • 2122.pngVinay Gupta to talk about Mattereum at Disrupt BerlinSeptember 27, 2018
    • slider_wp_03Best collection of WordPress Slider PluginsJuly 5, 2010
    • Joomla template builderTop 8 Free Joomla Template GeneratorsJuly 19, 2011
    • 40+ Best WordPress Plugins for Comments40+ Best WordPress Plugins for CommentsJune 18, 2011
    • wptheme2A Collection of Free WordPress ThemesJuly 11, 2010
    • Jason Hall on:Circle launches its stablecoin
    • Jason Hall on:Circle launches its stablecoin
    • Bharat Sarkari Naukri on:Spotify acquires online music studio Soundtrap as it goes after creators
    • PMP on:Online learning platform Unacademy gets $21M Series C from Sequoia India, SAIF and Nexus
  • Staff Picks

    • slider_wp_03Best collection of WordPress Slider PluginsJuly 5, 2010
    • Joomla template builderTop 8 Free Joomla Template GeneratorsJuly 19, 2011
    • 40+ Best WordPress Plugins for Comments40+ Best WordPress Plugins for CommentsJune 18, 2011
  • Recent Posts

    • Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in London
    • Rally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series A
  • Search Our Blog

  • Ulancer is an insightful freelance blog and resource site. We provide intuitive articles that cover Photoshop tutorials, time-saving management tips covering a broad range of topics. We also have an active freelance community forum, there you can meet other freelancers that share your common interest, socialize and chat about freelance trending news as the occurred.

© Copyright 2013 Ulancer.