Nate Chastian’s case could provide a watershed moment
A former product manager at leading Ethereum NFT marketplace OpenSea has been arrested and charged with insider trading. 31-year-old Nate Chastian faces one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering and could now face up to 40 years in prison as regulators target the crypto industry.
Nate Christian is accused of carrying out a scheme whereby he abused his position as Product Manager at OpenSea to get early information about which NFT collections would be featured on the home page. While being featured isn’t a guaranteed ticket to stardom it will usually push the trading volume of a collection up, if only temporarily, as more eyeballs start to see it.
According to the information available, Nate Chastian’s job was to pick the NFTs that made it onto the OpenSea home page. From around June through to September 2021, coincidentally as NFT trading volumes broke records month over month, Nate is accused…
