On Wednesday, United States prosecutors in Manhattan charged Nathaniel Chastain, 31, with insider buying and selling. Chastain is a former product supervisor at OpenSea, the most important nonfungible token (NFT) market. This would be the first case of its type relating to digital belongings and conventional prison investigations.

Prosecutors declare that Chastain purchased 45 NFTs via nameless scorching wallets and nameless accounts on OpenSea after which bought them for a revenue shortly after. He allegedly purchased them shortly earlier than they have been featured on the OpenSea market homepage and bought them for a revenue proper after. Because the product supervisor, it will have been in his energy to decide on which NFTs have been featured, giving him direct entry to the insider data that he, himself, created.