Ex-OpenSea manager Nathaniel Chastain convicted in NFT insider trading case
A former product manager at non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea was convicted of fraud and money laundering for using inside knowledge of assets to be featured on its home page for trading NFTs. Nathaniel Chastain was accused of buying NFTs he had decided to feature on the OpenSea website and selling them shortly afterward to make more than $50,000 in illegal profit. "Although this case involved trades in novel crypto assets, there was nothing particularly innovative about his conduct - it was fraud," Damian Williams, the US Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement. The charges against Chastain, announced last June, were the first in a series of high-profile cases related to digital assets launched by Williams' office last year. The case could have broader implications for assets that do not fit in to existing regulations preventing investment advisers, brokers and others from trading on material nonpublic information, legal experts have said. Chastain had pleaded not guilty.
