A former manager of OpenSea, a trading platform specializing in NFTs (non-fungible tokens, or non-fungible tokens in French), was sentenced on Wednesday May 3 by a court in New York, United States, for fraud and money laundering, reports Reuters. Nathaniel Chastain, who had the possibility of choosing the NFTs featured on the OpenSea home page, was found guilty of having used this power for his personal enrichment, by deciding to put forward, on the site , NFTs that he had just bought and then resold at a profit. He was able to generate more than $50,000 in illegal profits.
“He abused his position at OpenSea to line his own pockets and lied to cover himself,” prosecutor Thomas Burnett said Monday. Mr. Chastain had pleaded not guilty, his lawyers arguing that at OpenSea knowing what NFTs were going to be exposed on his homepage could not be considered confidential information, and therefore he could not swear here. insider trading. “No one told Nate [Chastain] he couldn’t use or share this information,” they pleaded.
In response, prosecutor Allison Nichols argued that the defendant used anonymous accounts on the platform to carry out his illegal transactions, demonstrating that he was aware that his actions were wrongful. “He knew he was violating OpenSea’s confidentiality agreement,” she said.
Nathaniel Chastain, who had to resign in September 2021 after his employer discovered his schemes, had been on trial since June 2022. investors or traders to make transactions based on information that has not been made public beforehand is also valid for the cryptocurrency sector.
