Is This The First ‘Evidence’ Of Insider Trading At Coinbase?

Last week, in “Raise Your Hand If You Traded Bitcoin And Bitcoin Cash On Inside Information In The Last 48 Hours,” we documented the rather suspicious price action leading up to Coinbase’s Tuesday evening announcement about bitcoin cash.

Specifically, Bitcoin took an abrupt dive right around the close on Wall Street. A little over three hours later, when the official announcement was made about bitcoin cash adoption by Coinbase, Bitcoin plunged:

Prior to that, bitcoin cash had been rising. It exploded higher when Coinbase made things official: 

And the ensuing chaos led to multiple halts: 

Update on #BCH trading on GDAXhttps://t.co/p3cEx0ryh7 pic.twitter.com/NyGUTVFL91

— GDAX (@GDAX) December 20, 2017

On Wednesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the following in a blog post:

Today we announced support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH). It appears the price of Bitcoin Cash on other exchanges increased in the hours before our announcement.

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.

Our launch of Bitcoin Cash today is no exception to this. All Coinbase employees and contractors were explicitly prohibited from trading Bitcoin Cash and from disclosing our launch plans over a month ago. This was communicated multiple times via multiple channels to employees. For instance, I made sure it was emphasized at our Friday Q&A sessions, and in emails sent to all employees. I view it as a key part of my job to set the tone from the top about how we all must act to ensure success. The trading restriction, which applies to all personal trading activity on any platform, remains in effect now.

I take the confidentiality of material non-public information very seriously as CEO. 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.