Nathaniel Chastain, a former manager at OpenSea, was convicted by a jury of wire fraud and money laundering on Wednesday, May 3, in a case that was described as the first NFT-related insider trading prosecution.
Chastain pled not guilty.
In June 2022, Chastain was charged with wire fraud and money laundering by the Department of Justice.
Chastain had allegedly made over $50,000 by “ using his knowledge of confidential information to purchase dozens of NFTs in advance of them being featured on OpenSea’s homepage,” according to the FBI’s Michel Driscoll in a statement last year.
Reuters reported that prosecutor Thomas Burnett, in closing arguments, said that Chastain “abused” his status at OpenSea, and violated its confidentiality agreement.
However, Chastain’s lawyer, Daniel Filor, argued that he did not break any company rules with the trades.
Chastain was asked to resign by OpenSea in September 2021.
An OpenSea spokesperson told Blockworks that Chastain’s resignation was because he was found to be “in violation of our employee policies and in direct conflict
with our core values and principles.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Source: https://blockworks.co/news/opensea-nft-nate-chastain-wire-fraud