Former Coinbase Employee Charged With Insider Trading, Singapore’s Zipmex Pauses Trading, Ethereum Up 5%

Former Coinbase Global product manager Ishan Wahi (32), his brother Nikhil Wahi (26) and their friend Sameer Ramani (33) were charged by the US for benefiting from a cryptocurrency insider trading scheme. The US attorney for the southern district of New York and FBI’s New York field office charged them with wire fraud conspiracy and fraud in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading in crypto assets with insider information from Coinbase. All three of them were also charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Today we announced insider trading charges against a former Coinbase product manager, his brother, and his friend for perpetrating a scheme to trade ahead of multiple announcements regarding certain crypto assets that would be made available for trading on the Coinbase platform.

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) July 21, 2022

Meanwhile, Singapore-based crypto exchange Zipmex has become the latest exchange to pause withdrawals. Although they intended to restart withdrawals and deposits by last evening (Thursday 6pm), this never happened as they once again ran into technical difficulties. So now they have extended their maintenance period.

“To prevent any technical issues, we are extending our maintenance period for Trade Wallet until 22 July 2022 (GMT+7). We are working hard to bring back the Trade Wallet function as soon as we can. Withdrawals will be enabled once we’re back”, the exchange said.

Zipmex said it took this step due to volatile crypto market conditions and their key business partner facing some financial difficulties.

📢Important Announcement 📢

To prevent any technical issues, we are extending our maintenance period for Trade Wallet until 22 July 2022 (GMT+7).

We are working hard to bring back the Trade Wallet function as soon as we can. Withdrawals will be enabled once we’re back. pic.twitter.com/o0d0h4PuNj

— ZIPMEX (@zipmex) July 21, 2022

Cryptocurrency Prices

The global crypto market capitalisation went up by 2.33 per cent to $1.05 trillion as of 8.40 am. However, the global crypto volume was down by 20.36 per cent at $75.64 billion, according to Coinmarketcap data.

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s oldest cryptocurrency, was trading at $23,072.42, higher by 1.42 per cent in the last 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) was up by 4.81 per cent to $1,566.44. 

Among other significant coins, Cardano (ADA) was up by 2.51 per cent at $0.4956, Algorand (ALGO) was trading with a gain of 4.59 per cent at $0.351, Solana (SOL) was trading with a gain of 6.6 per cent at $42.75, Polkadot (DOT) was up by 2.84 per cent at $7.45, and Binance Coin (BNB) rose 4.48 per cent at $264.71.

Today’s top gainer was Bitcoin Gold (BTG), which was up by 34.84 per cent at $22.34. The top loser was XDC Network (XDC), which was down by 1.36 per cent at $0.02996. 

Meme Coin And DeFi Prices

Dogecoin (DOGE) was up by 3.41 per cent at $0.06992. Its volume to market cap ratio stands at 0.05499. Rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) was up by 4.34 per cent at $0.00001206.

Dogelon Mars (ELON) rose 4.6 per cent to trade at $0.0000003666, Floki Inu (FLOKI) rose 3.61 per cent at $0.00001008, and Samoyed Coin (SAMO) rose 2.53 per cent at $0.01078. 

In the DeFi segment, YFI (yearn.finance) was up by 4.68 per cent at $6,662.98, and Terra Classic (LUNC) was trading with a gain of 5.04 per cent at $0.0001037. Avalanche (AVAX) was up by 6.89 per cent at $24.75, Aave (AAVE) rose 4.79 per cent at $93.44, and Uniswap (UNI) was trading with a gain of 5.59 per cent at $7.16.