Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at the details in this case it appears that the actual charges are for exploiting confidential company information for his own gain and not insider trading.
Misappropriating fiduciary information is literally the legal basis for insider trading. There's a common fallacy that insider trading is illegal because the government wants to enforce a "level playing field". Nothing could be further from the truth. Insider trading is illegal because as an employee of the company, you're profiting off your job in a way that doesn't share any of the profits with your employer. In ot…
Publicly traded companies themselves are subject to regulations that impede varrious kinds of unfair and prejudicial behavior. Isn't the colloquially interpretation less far from reality than someone might extract from your comment? Since if regulations keep the company from doing it, and 'insider trading' keeps the insiders from doing it-- you're left with those that have superhuman insight from satellite photos or whatever (technically public, but maybe only practically available to billion dollar corporations) -- and at least the hedge funds are vulnerable to noise and misinterpretation. You might get thoroughly out traded, but hopefully not through actually privileged information.
The reason I bring it up is was really the reason behind my original comment: I think that nothing about this prosecution should make people investing in crypto-commodities, ICOs, etc. particularly obscure and thinly traded ones feel any safer from exchange insiders trading against them to their detriment.
All you we can extract from this is that if exchange staff do it for their personal benefit they might get prosecuted. But the staff doing it personally in their own accounts is probably a minor problem compared to the exchange engaging in it for its own profits.