New York Exec Charged in Justice Department’s First NFT Insider-Trading Bust
BLOCKED CHAIN
Nate Chastain is accused of using confidential information and secret wallets to buy NFTs before they were featured on his employer OpenSea’s homepage.
A former exec at OpenSea, the largest online marketplace for the purchase and sale of NFTs, has been charged with insider trading in the Department of Justice’s first-ever case of its kind. Nate Chastain, 31, allegedly got advance knowledge of what NFTs would be featured on OpenSea’s homepage, and he used secret crypto wallets and anonymous accounts to buy at least 12 NFTs or non-fungible tokens before they were featured. Once the NFTs were added to OpenSea’s homepage, the price usually spiked and Chastain then sold them off, for two to five times his initial purchase price. Blockworks reported last September that Chastain resigned after numerous tweeters pointed out the suspicious behavior. Blockworks cited data showing that Chastain made about 19 ether, or around $67,000. “NFTs might be new, but this type of criminal scheme is not,” Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
