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OpenSea Exec Accused of Insider Trading Resigns
OpenSea’s head of product, Nate Chastain, has resigned following allegations of insider trading.
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:02 p.m. Published Sep 16, 2021, 9:36 p.m.
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Nate Chastain, head of product at the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, has resigned following allegations of insider trading.
Chastain was specifically asked to resign, OpenSea co-founder Devin Finzer told CoinDesk in an email.
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The allegations cropped up on Twitter on Tuesday night; in a thread, a user called @ZuwuTV posted transaction receipts from Ethereum addresses involved in front-running NFTs on the OpenSea website, which appeared to be tied to Chastain.
Chastain, the user alleged, was snapping up cheap NFTs before OpenSea planned to feature them on the site’s homepage, and then quickly selling them after the increased attention sent the prices up.
On Wednesday morning, OpenSea acknowledged in a statement that someone at their company was in fact doing this, but didn’t name Chastain. The company said it has implemented new policies to prevent this kind of activity from being repeated.
Chastain still has yet to respond publicly, but quietly updated his Twitter bio this morning to reflect his having left the company.
truthfully, him updating us on twitter like this does hurt my heart a little. from one human being to another, i hope you’re ok pic.twitter.com/jwVXtDjguY
— andrew (@andr3w) September 16, 2021
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