The former CEO of crypto options contracts regulator Bakkt, Senator Kelly Loeffler, will now liquidate all of her holdings. This comes after increasing scrutiny of Loeffler over allegations of insider trading relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kelly Loeffler is facing heavy criticism over insider trading allegations

This news first came in a tweet on April 8th. In it, Loeffler said that she and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher – the CEO of Bakkt’s owner ICE – are liquidating their holdings. Specifically, Loeffler said that this came in response to the developing COVID-19 coronavirus ”situation”.

However, it is worth noting that Loeffler has a personal connection to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, Kelly Loeffler first began facing criticisms on March 20th, after reports that she supposedly sold millions worth of stock within days of a private Senate Health Committee hearing.

The hearing was supposedly on the subject of the novel COVID-19 coronavirus. As such, observers speculate that Loeffler could have been profiting off private information regarding the coronavirus.

For example, the American political commentator Keith Boykin is even accusing Loeffler of partaking in a ”coronavirus insider trading scandal”. Moreover, other Senators such as Richard Burr, Ron Johnson and Jim Inhofe are also said to be in on the insider trading scheme.

Loeffler offloads stocks to move away from this ”distraction”

As such, it is highly notable that Loeffler is now offloading all her holdings. According to a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Loeffler, her actions are not due to Senate requirements. Instead, she cites a ”commitment to defeat the coronavirus”.

She also refers to the allegations of insider trading as a ”distraction”. In her opinion piece, Loeffler argues that she never took advantage of confidential coronavirus information to trade. Nevertheless, she says her family will now divest from individual stocks two end this ”distraction”:

”I am taking action to move beyond the distraction and put the focus back on the essential work we must all do to defeat the coronavirus. Although Senate ethics rules don’t require it, my husband and I are liquidating our holdings in managed accounts and moving into exchange-traded funds and mutual funds. I will report these exiting transactions in the periodic transaction report I file later this month.”

It is unclear whether Loeffler and her husband will also divest any cryptocurrency assets. Since the opinion piece specially names ”stocks” and not investment assets, it seems cryptocurrency perhaps is not included.