The former head of product at NFT platform OpenSea, Nathaniel Chastain, has been sentenced to three months in prison following his involvement in the first-ever NFT insider trading case.
As part of the job, Nathaniel Chastain has to decide which NFTs will receive a prominent position on OpenSea. He used this information for his personal gain, so U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman sentenced him on Tuesday in New York. He was even found guilty of fraud and money laundering in May.
According to the Department of Justice, he made an illegal profit of more than $50,000 from trading at least 45 NFTs and concealing his purchase using various unknown wallets and OpenSea accounts while he was arrested last June.
The three months sentence is far shorter than the requested sentence of two years called by prosecutors, who also cited a previous insider trading case at Coinbase. The judge overseeing the case credited Chastain’s meager profits from the trades for the light sentence.
In order, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, “Nathanial Chastain faced justice today for violating the trust that his employer placed in him by using OpenSea’s confidential information for his own profit. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to other corporate insiders that insider trading – in any marketplace – will not be tolerated.”
Authorities claimed at the time that it was the first instance of insider trading involving digital assets. After that, Nate was given the order to give back his illicit gains. In addition to prison time, Chastain was sentenced to three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release.
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