Insider Trading Allegations At Coinbase

In a class action lawsuit filed March 1, plaintiffs claim employees of Bitcoin exchange Coinbase illegally profited by trading on insider information. The lawsuit alleges that trades those employees made artificially inflated the price of Bitcoin Cash, causing customers and the rest of the cryptocurrency market to unfairly lose money. Unspecified monetary damages are demanded for Coinbase customers who placed purchase, sale or trade orders from Dec. 19, 2017 through Dec. 21, 2017. A second lawsuit was filed a day later, in which Coinbase was accused of “unlawful and unfair business practices” and violating California’s Unclaimed Property Law. That suit accuses Coinbase of fraudulently keeping funds it knew did not belong to it simply because users had not claimed the money. In February, Coinbase was accused of overcharging its customers, but Visa later admitted it had been responsible for the error.