Ex-OpenSea employee charged with insider trading says info he used was not considered confidential

The defence for erstwhile OpenSea worker Nate Chastain, who has been charged with insider trading, told a assemblage connected May 1 that his lawsuit was ne'er told the NFT accusation nether his purview was confidential, Reuters reported.

Chastain is simply a erstwhile merchandise manager for OpenSea and was astatine 1 constituent successful complaint of which NFTs would beryllium featured connected the platform’s homepage. He utilized his presumption to acquisition assets that were going to beryllium featured beforehand and past sold them erstwhile their prices rose.

One of Chastain’s lawyers Daniel Filor did not contradict that his lawsuit conducted the trades. However, helium argued that Chastain was unaware that specified a commercialized could beryllium deemed amerciable arsenic OpenSea did not see it to beryllium delicate concern accusation astatine the time.

Filor said:

“This isn’t Wall Street merger and acquisition information. Nate’s choices successful his caput astir which NFT to diagnostic weren’t considered by OpenSea to beryllium confidential backmost then.”

Meanwhile, the prosecution argued that Chastain’s usage of anonymous accounts to marque the trades shows helium was alert helium was doing thing illegal.

Prosecutor Thomas Burnett told the jury:

“He was utilizing OpenSea’s accusation similar his ain piggy bank. It was arsenic bully arsenic escaped money.

First Insider Trading case

The Southern District of New York arrested and charged Chastain successful June 2022 with 1 number each of wealth laundering and ligament fraud implicit utilizing the accusation helium had astatine his disposal to marque astir $50,000 successful profits for his idiosyncratic gain.

It is the archetypal insider trading lawsuit related to integer assets and is expected to acceptable a far-reaching ineligible precedent for the crypto industry.

Chastain initially filed a question to disregard the lawsuit connected the ground that NFTs were not spot and nary wealth laundering had taken place. However, the tribunal rejected the question and said its arguments should beryllium heard by a assemblage contempt saying that they had immoderate merit.

The station Ex-OpenSea worker charged with insider trading says info helium utilized was not considered confidential appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.