Former OpenSea exec sentenced to prison for insider trading
- The manager purchased 45 NFTs throughout June-September 2021 utilizing completely different nameless wallets previous to sale.
- He then resold them for greater than $50,000.
A federal decide sentenced former OpenSea product supervisor Nathaniel Chastain to jail for insider buying and selling on the non-fungible token [NFT] platform, announced the U.S. Division of Justice on 22 August.
U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated that the court docket sentenced Chastain to 3 months in jail, three months in dwelling confinement, and three years in supervised launch. The court docket additionally fined him $50,000 and ordered him to give up ill-gotten Ethereum [ETH] from NFT gross sales.
Chastain was accused of insider buying and selling throughout his stint at OpenSea. As a product supervisor, he held the facility to pick out the NFTs to be listed on the OpenSea platform. Throughout June-September 2021, he bought 45 NFTs utilizing completely different nameless wallets prior to those NFTs being added on the gross sales platform. He then resold them for greater than $50,000.
The U.S. authorities charged and arrested Chastain in June 2022. A jury discovered him responsible of wire fraud and cash laundering in Could 2023. The most recent court docket order, almost definitely, brings the case to its conclusion.
The decide added that although the crime amounted to stricter punishment, Chastain’s sentence is lenient as a result of he didn’t make extraordinary earnings from the sale.
U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated,
“Nathanial Chastain confronted justice right now for violating the belief that his employer positioned in him by utilizing OpenSea’s confidential data for his personal revenue. Right now’s sentence ought to function a warning to different company insiders that insider buying and selling – in any market – won’t be tolerated.”
Is NFT winter creeping into Q3?
The NFT market has been dealing with a decline in its fortunes for some months now. It appears this winter has nowhere to go.
In response to a report by the Web3 growth platform Alchemy, NFT buying and selling quantity plummeted 41% within the second quarter of 2023.
One other report by DappRadar, July noticed a few of the lowest NFT gross sales in 2023. NFT buying and selling quantity in July fell 29% to $632 million, in comparison with Could. The variety of NFT gross sales in July equally dropped 23% to three.7 million throughout the identical time interval as effectively.
In the meantime, the ground costs of top-tier collections resembling Bored Ape Yacht Membership [BAYC] and Azuki dipped to two-year lows.
Supply: DappRadar
