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On Monday the trial of Nathaniel Chastain began who was a product manager at the World’s largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), OpenSea. Allegations were made that Nathaniel made trading decisions on the tokens that he featured on the homepage of the Company.
Nathaniel was charged last year by the prosecutors in Manhattan for netting illegal profits close to $50,000 dollars. He bought a few NFTs before he put them up on OpenSea’s website and sold them once the asset value rose. The opposition lawyer Thomas Brunett argued that Nathaniel made the plan already of featuring that token on OpenSea’s website and that he looked for his own benefit above the company’s. In his closing argument on Monday, the prosecutor said “His greed won out”
Argument by the defense
The defense lawyer on the other hand argued as the insider trading trial came to a close that Nathaniel who worked as Product Manager wasn’t told about the fact that it was confidential information as to which asset should be featured on the homepage.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last year charged Nathaniel Chastain with buying NFTs that he had chosen to feature on the marketplace’s website, and then netting more than $50,000 in illegal profits by selling them shortly after.
It was one of the first cases related to Digital Assets launched by the U.S. Attorney’s office last year. The case involving Nathaniel Chastian was the first insider trading case involving Digital Assets. Legal Experts stated that this case can have a larger impact as a lot of assets do not fit into the existing regulatory system and this can prevent the law to act on investment advisers, brokers, and others from trading on nonpublic material information.
A lawyer of Chastian, Daniel Filor argued in his closing statement that Nathaniel wasn’t informed by OpenSea or anybody in the company that he cannot use or display the information of NFTs which would be displayed on the homepage of the websites. The defense lawyer also told the Jury that the data wasn’t some Wall Street merger information and that the defendant’s choices on which NFTs to feature weren’t confidential to OpenSea back then. Earlier on Monday prosecutor Thomas Brunett said to the jury that the defendant had multiple anonymous accounts trading NFTs and that the defendant knew what he was doing was shady.
Nathaniel Chastain was arrested with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast, with a major in macroeconomics and minor in business statistics. She believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks, and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning. She frequently researches, and posts content on the top altcoins, their theoretical working principles and technical price predictions.
