Nate Chastain was asked to resign from his position as Head of Product at OpenSea in September 2021 following allegations of NFT insider trading. Online sleuths had discovered that he had apparently bought NFTs based on insider knowledge that they would later be featured on OpenSea's front page. On June 1, the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging Chastain with wire fraud and money laundering, alleging that he had used anonymous crypto wallets and OpenSea accounts to buy NFTs before they were featured on the front page, then resell them for two to five times what he paid for them.After leaving OpenSea in the wake of the allegations, Chastain began pitching a new NFT platform called "Oval" to investors, seeking $3 million in seed funding.
Chastain was arrested on June 1. The two charges he faces each carry a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison. The Attorney's Office described the charges as the first ever relating to insider trading of digital assets, and stated that, "today's charges demonstrate the commitment of this Office to stamping out insider trading — whether it occurs on the stock market or the blockchain."
