Michael A. Kimelman

Michael A. Kimelman is an American entrepreneur, former trader, author, business coach, financial consultant and motivational speaker.

On 9 November 2009, Kimelman was arrested by the FBI on the charges of "conspiracy to commit insider trading" related to the Galleon Group hedge fund fraud organized by Raj Rajaratnam. He stood two-week trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. by the U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara but rejected the proposal and was found guilty of "being a part of an insider trading scheme". On 12 October 2011, Kimelman was sentenced to two and a half years and served 21 months at the minimum security Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania.

In 2017, Kimelman published the memoir Confessions of a Wall Street Insider, where he revealed a lot of insider details on the Wall Street lifestyle as well as disorganized U.S. Penitentiary System.

Early life Michael Kimelman was born into a middle-class family and grew up in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California. After being engaged in legal practice for three years, he became disillusioned with corporate law work and changed his career to trading and finance.

Career After leaving the law firm in 1999, Kimelman launched a successful career as a proprietary trader. He also worked as an analyst and portfolio manager for a number of hedge funds. During the 2008 financial crisis, Kimelman founded Incremental Capital,

Kimelman has spoken at the White Collar Support Group, a 501(c)(3) organization which assists former white-collar offenders accept responsibility, make amends, and rebuild their lives.

In 2017, Kimelman and Charlie Shrem formed Crypto.IQ, a strategic advisory and investment firm in the digital asset space. Kimelman is currently the CEO of Dekryption Advisors, an advisory and investment firm with a focus on healthcare and blockchain companies.

Writing While still incarcerated, Kimelman began to write a book on the Wall Street lifestyle and the U.S. Criminal Justice System, titled Confessions of a Wall Street Insider: A Cautionary Tale of Rats, Feds, and Banksters. The book was written in form of memoir, where the author shared his views on his past career as a money manager and the institutional bias and incompetence of the U.S. judicial and penitentiary system.

"“You hear about the basic fairness of the legal system and then you go through the process and there’s this cognitive dissonance between what you hear your whole life and what you experience. It was an urge, almost a necessity, to put that to paper..."

"From a societal point of view, I learned what an abject disgrace our prison system is (really the entire criminal-justice system). While I get that it's supposed to be punitive, I find it hard to believe that the American public would allow it to exist in its present state if they knew what it was like."

Originally published in March 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing, the book received mostly favorable reviews, ranging from critical acclaim for honest retrospection into personal biography

In June 2022, he co-authored a book entitled Mastering the Basics of Bitcoin and Crypto with co-author Charlie Shrem.

Works