Key Highlights
- ZachXBT’s February 2026 Axion expose revealed employees at the Solana-based trading platform using internal dashboards to track user wallets.
- Before this, Coinbase’s 2022 listing-leak case became the first U.S. crypto trading legal case.
- Once very popular, OpenSea users also witnessed insider trading where its homepage was used.
Amid the turmoil in the crypto market, there is something going on that sparked a discussion in the community about this sector. On February 26, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT released his latest report on insider trading. This time, he exposed employees at Solana-based trading platform Axiom for allegedly abusing internal customer-support dashboards to access sensitive user data.
According to the report, staff members accessed some private information, including wallet information, referral codes, and transaction histories. Senior business-development staffer Broox Bauer and associates were caught in recorded calls, where they said that they could “track any Axiom user.” Not just this, they reportedly created Google Sheets of high-value wallets, which is likely to front-run memecoin trades.
While the crypto sector is popular for its transparent and decentralized nature, some infamous incidents of insider trading are raising questions like how deep does insider trading really run?
Here are some of these insider trading cases that have shaken the entire crypto world.
1. ZachXBT’s AXIOM Expose
ZachXBT has disclosed a report about Axiom’s internal operations, where the investigator highlighted weak internal controls at a platform that generated over $390 million in cumulative revenue by early 2026.
1/ Meet @WheresBroox (Broox Bauer), one of the multiple @AxiomExchange employees allegedly abusing the lack of access controls for internal tools to lookup sensitive user details to insider trade by tracking private wallet activity since early 2025. pic.twitter.com/KwICQMJL1q
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 26, 2026
Employees allegedly used an internal dashboard to query any user by UID, wallet, or referral link, then fed that intel into coordinated trading groups.
Screenshots from private February 2026 calls showed Bauer reviewing 10 to 20 wallets per session to avoid detection, all while helping associates chase $200,000 quick profits. On-chain data revealed a number of high-frequency memecoin wallets with suspicious timing. They were buying just before major volume spikes that aligned with known internal lookups.
This was not a single incident, as the activity dated back to at least April 2025, including leaks on traders nicknamed “Jerry” and “Monix.”
The case is showing a major crypto-based loophole that often goes unseen. Centralized points of control are staying inside decentralized ecosystems, including dashboards, listing teams, and other tools. When employees use non-public user data as personal alpha, the entire market’s price discovery gets distorted. It is a reminder that transparency only stays strong until the people protecting it stay honest.
2. Coinbase’s 2022 Listing Leak Case
2 years ago, the U.S. government registered the first legal incident of insider trading in crypto. Former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi, who helped coordinate the exchange’s public listing announcements, repeatedly informed his brother Nikhil Wahi and friend Sameer Ramani about upcoming tokens in advance.
Between June 2021 and April 2022, these three people executed at least 25 trades ahead of announcements. Nine of these involved assets that the SEC later classified as securities.
The pattern was very similar every time. Once Coinbase tweeted about a new listing, the token price generally increased 20% to 100% or more within hours. The group generated more than $1.1 million in illicit profits before selling.
However, this incident came to light after on-chain investigations. The defendants used anonymous Ethereum wallets and accounts in other people’s names. But law enforcement linked them through IP address records from exchange logins and on-chain behavioral clustering. Investigators have tracked funding sources, trade timing, and withdrawal patterns to connect the dots.
Coinbase has very clear policies for this kind of insider trading. The company clearly declared listing information as material non-public information (MNPI) and banned trading based on it.
Ishan Wahi was found guilty in the case of wire fraud. He received 24 months in prison and forfeited 10.97 ETH and 9,440 USDT. Nikhil Wahi got 10 months and forfeited $892,500. While Sameer Ramani remains at large.
This was the first time that U.S. authorities treated crypto listings the same way Wall Street treats merger rumors. This clarified that under the “misappropriation theory of insider trading, insider trading for personal benefits is a crime, even when the assets involved are digital.
3. OpenSea NFT Homepage Incident
In 2021 and 2022, OpenSea product manager Nathaniel “Nate” Chastain secretly bought NFTs he knew would soon be featured on the marketplace’s homepage. That placement mattered because a spot on the homepage historically boosted 3x to 5x price spikes through increased visibility on the biggest NFT marketplace.
Using anonymous accounts to hide his tracks, Chastain acquired at least 15 NFTs before the features went live. Once the homepage spotlight hit and the price increased, he dumped them for approximately $57,000 in profit.
In the official court document, He was charged with wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors stated that Chastain stole OpenSea’s confidential business information for personal benefits. In 2023, a jury agreed, and he was sentenced to 3 months in prison, 3 months of home confinement, a $50,000 fine, and forfeiture of about 16 ETH.
There was another twist in this case. In July 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the conviction. The judges said that the jury instructions had been too unclear.
According to them, the instructions allowed conviction based merely on “departing from traditional notions of honesty” without proving two major points. The first one was that the information had clear commercial value to OpenSea. Another major point was that Chastain’s scheme actually deprived the company of property under the wire-fraud statute.
Summing Up
Insider trading is not a new concept, as it’s been around for a long time. But the rising cases of insider trading in the crypto sector are grabbing the attention of the traders and regulators. Crypto’s transparency is its biggest power; however, sometimes, it becomes a weakness. The same blockchain that allows anyone to verify transactions also allows anyone with inside access to abuse information asymmetry for personal benefits.
However, the crypto sector can keep itself clean through public scrutiny and on-chain evidence. Investigators like ZachXBT show that the blockchain leaves trails that cannot be erased.
Also Read: Justin Bieber’s NFT Portfolio: Million Dollar Buys and Their Dramatic Drops
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