- Axiom employees accused of insider trading.
- ZachXBT investigation exposes coordinated group.
- Shady activity allegedly ongoing for over 10 months.
Employees at Axiom, a trading platform on Solana, are accused of abusing sensitive data the platform holds on its users to execute dozens of insider trades.
An investigation released by pseudonymous crypto sleuth ZachXBT on Thursday pinned the schemes on Broox Bauer, an employee who handled business development for the platform.
Bauer, along with several associates, allegedly used Axiom’s internal tools to look up customers’ crypto wallets and track their activity, giving the group a significant advantage over other traders.
“There was little to no monitoring or access controls in place to mitigate this abuse from happening in the first place,” ZachXBT said. “The extent of data granted to employees in an easily accessible dashboard is unusual for business development roles.”
It’s not clear how much Bauer and his associates made through the schemes, which allegedly started just months after the platform launched in January 2025.
In a recorded call that took place in early February, Broox allegedly outlined a plan to help one of his associates profit $200,000 by abusing his privileged access, ZachXBT said.
Bauer did not immediately respond to DL News’ request for comment.
Insider trading concerns
The accusations come as concerns over insider trading of crypto assets and on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi reach a fever pitch.
On Tuesday, the administrator overseeing Terraform Labs’ winding down filed a lawsuit against Jane Street, alleging that the high-frequency trading firm used nonpublic information to profit from Terraform’s collapse.
Last month, several Democratic politicians in the US co-sponsored the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, a bill that prohibits elected officials from buying, selling or exchanging prediction market contracts tied to the administration’s policies.
On February 23, ZachXBT teased that he planned to release an exposé on alleged insider trading, leading to the creation of a Polymarket prediction market that let bettors gamble on the named project.
Before the investigation was posted, bettors gave Axiom around a 30% chance of being named, the highest out of all available options.
Profitable company
Axiom is a crypto trading platform founded in 2024 by Henry Zhang, otherwise known as Mist, and Preston Ellis, who also goes by Cal — both recent college graduates at the time.
The platform went through Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch and launched in early-access shortly after. It quickly became one of the most profitable companies in the crypto industry, generating over $390 million in revenue to date, according to DefiLlama data.
ZachXBT is a prolific crypto sleuth who has conducted dozens of investigations across the industry. He said he was retained by Axiom to investigate allegations of misconduct.
“We are surprised and disappointed to hear that someone on our team abused internal customer support tools to look up user wallets,” Axiom said in response to the investigation.
“We have removed access to these tools and will continue to investigate and hold the offending parties responsible.”
Wallet spreadsheet
According to ZachXBT’s investigation, Bauer and his associates created a spreadsheet compiling the wallet addresses of potential targets obtained by abusing Axiom’s tools.
Multiple people named on the spreadsheet or in leaked screenshots were contacted and independently confirmed the accuracy of wallet data attributed to them, ZachXBT said.
It wasn’t just wallet addresses that the group had access to. Axiom’s tools allow Bauer to look up a user’s entire wallet list, the wallets that user is tracking, their transaction history, nicknames of wallets, and linked accounts.
“Given Broox is based in NYC I think the case presents itself as a good opportunity for SDNY since it may fall within their jurisdiction,” ZachXBT said.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York — SDNY — is one of the most active federal prosecutors in pursuing crypto-related fraud, manipulation, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, and money laundering cases.
The federal trial court has litigated some of the most high-profile crypto cases, including those against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, and Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg.
“Whether or not criminal charges are filed, I hope the Axiom co-founders further investigate the abuse and consider taking legal action against the employees involved,” ZachXBT said.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.
