Nathaniel Chastain will begin his three month prison sentence on November 2, followed by three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release.
On August 22, Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at OpenSea, a leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, was sentenced to three months in prison in a landmark NFT insider trading case.
A letter filed by the former manager’s lawyers shows that Chastain has withdrawn his application for bail pending appeal, meaning he will self-surrender to prison on November 2.
He will serve his sentence while waiting for his appeal, the letter outlines.
Following his three month prison term, Chastain will also serve three months of home confinement followed by three years of supervised release. He must also pay a fine of $50,000 and forfeit any Ethereum he made trading the featured NFTs.
Details of the case
At OpenSea, Chastain was responsible for selecting NFTs to be featured on the homepage. The platform usually keeps the identity of featured NFTs confidential until they are live, but as an employee, Chastain had knowledge of what NFTs would be featured.
With this knowledge, Chastain “secretly purchased” dozens of NFTs before they went live, later selling them at profits of two to five times the price he paid.
To conceal the fraud, the ruling outlines, Chastain made the purchases and sales using a range of anonymous wallets and OpenSea accounts.
Sentencing, 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.”
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