Bloomberg Law: Ex-OpenSea Employee’s NFT Handling Runs into DOJ’s ‘Stradivarius’

Eversheds Sutherland Counsel Andrea Gordon is quoted in this Bloomberg Law article discussing the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent wire fraud charges against ex-OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain, who allegedly bought and sold nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on the OpenSea app with secret information. 

The DOJ, which has taken an increased focus on digital assets under the Biden administration, can crack down on conduct that might fall outside the SEC’s reach. The Chastain case will likely be a model for prosecutors in similar cases.

“The decision opens up the possibility for future digital asset ‘insider trading’ actions without actually having to address that heavily debated question of whether a digital asset is a security,” Andrea said. “They don’t even have to go into that.