Yesterday, a jury in Manhattan federal court found former OpenSea product manager, Nathanial Chastain, guilty of wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly using inside company information to front-run trades of NFTs featured on OpenSea’s homepage. The government charged that Chastain profited in excess of $50,000 by front-running trades of NFTs that were to be featured on OpenSea’s homepage. According Reuters, Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Burnett told the jury that Chastain "abused his status at OpenSea to line his own pockets, and he lied to cover his tracks" Reuters
Chastain now awaits sentencing. His sentencing will be determined in-part based on sentencing guideline estimates generated by the United States Probation Office. The probation office will ultimately release a PSR to the court and the parties summarizing the facts and evidence proven at trial and an advisory guideline imprisonment range for the court to consider at sentencing. Federal judges are not bound by these guideline estimates and have the discretion to deviate either above or below the proposed advisory sentencing guideline range. Crypto Criminal Defense Lawyer Bog