Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at OpenSea, the nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has filed an appeal against his conviction for wire fraud and money laundering related to insider trading.
Chastain’s legal team argued in a filing to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Jan. 16 that he should be acquitted because the government failed to prove that the information he used to profit from NFTs on OpenSea was considered property. According to his lawyers, the information had no commercial value to the platform and was not classified as “protected property.”
The filing stated, “Not all confidential information can be considered property. Confidential information must have commercial value to its owner… The company’s revenue generation model was based on commissions from NFT transactions on its website, not on monetizing Chastain’s ideas about which NFTs to feature.”
During his trial in 2023 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors presented evidence that Chastain had the authority to select which NFTs would be featured on OpenSea’s website. He purchased 45 NFTs before they were featured and subsequently resold them for Ether (ETH).
In May 2023, Chastain was found guilty of wire fraud and money laundering. He was later sentenced to three months in prison and a $50,000 fine, with the judge granting him until Nov. 2 to surrender himself to the authorities. The appeal filing requested that Chastain’s conviction be reversed or a new trial be conducted.
Source: PACER
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