The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has actually arraigned an employee of non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Opensea in what the department called the “first-ever digital asset insider trading plan.”
DOJ Indicts Former Opensea Product Manager
The DOJ revealed Wednesday the unsealing of an indictment charging Nathaniel Chastain, a former item supervisor at Ozone Networks Inc. (aka Opensea), in its “first-ever digital asset insider trading plan.” Chastain was detained Wednesday early morning in New York.
The Justice Department described that from June to September 2021, the accused supposedly utilized Opensea’s secret information about what NFTs were going to be included on its homepage “to privately acquire lots of NFTs soon prior to they were included.” The DOJ included:
After those NFTs were included on Opensea, Chastain offered them at earnings of 2- to five-times his preliminary purchase rate.
As part of his work, Chastain was accountable for choosing NFTs to be included on Opensea’s homepage. “Opensea kept personal the identity of included NFTs till they appeared on its homepage,” the DOJ detailed. “After an NFT was included on Opensea’s homepage, the rate purchasers wanted to spend for that NFT, and for other NFTs made by the exact same NFT developer, usually increased significantly.”
Over the course of his deceitful plan, Chastain acquired about 45 NFTs on around 11 different events, court files reveal.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams suggested:
Today’s charges show the dedication of this Office to marking out insider trading — whether it takes place on the stock exchange or the blockchain.
The DOJ even more detailed: “To hide the scams, Chastain carried out these purchases and sales utilizing confidential digital currency wallets and confidential accounts on Opensea.”
According to the Justice Department:
Chastain, 31, of New York, New York is charged with one count of wire scams and one count of cash laundering, each of which brings an optimal sentence of twenty years in jail.
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