Ex-employee from OpenSea asks court to dismiss the insider trade case

Ex-employee from OpenSea asks court to dismiss the insider trade case

lawyers of a former OpenSea employee who is accused of insider trade were submitted by a lawsuit a "noopener" target = "_ blank" href = "https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.nysd.580756/gov.uscourts.nysd.580756.19.0.pdf"> Movement Last week to dismiss related charges and argued that the assets did not represent any securities or goods.

Nate Chastain, who worked as an Openea product manager between January and September 2021, it was adopted from the Ministry of Justice (DIJ) in June for two charges due to transfer frauds and money laundering on the basis of two charges in June From insider-nft trade.

It is the first time that the Doj files such charges against a person who concerns NFTS, the department wrote in an explanation at the time.

Every charge of money laundering and transfer fraud is documented with a maximum penalty of 20 years, which means that Chastain is technically aimed at a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

chastains lawyers

In particular, the Doj claims that Chastain used confidential company information to act NFTs before they were presented at the OpenSea homepage with the "two to five times profit" between June and September last year.

It is assumed that Chastain generated at least 19 ETH ($ 30,000) through such transactions. It was estimated on the basis of chastagers known to the chastor. His alleged shops were first discovered from a Twitter-user last September, about nine months before the doj charges.

"The catch, however, is that the NFTS are neither securities nor goods," wrote the lawyer in his application.

Every insider trade theory, even according to case law, requires trade in securities and raw materials, they wrote while pointing out what they see as a "incorrect understanding" of the US government.

Without this connection to the financial markets, insider trading can "in any form and in no context", argue the lawyers.

For what it is worth, lawyers who represent Ishan Wahi, the former Coinbase product manager, who is also accused of alleged insider trade, have based their case on almost exactly the same argument.

lawyers also claimed that Chastains insider information had no inherent economic or market value, which in their opinion should result in the indictment due to transfer fraud.

The lawyers wrote to the money laundering allegations against Chastain that the transparency of the Ethereum blockchain, in which the NFTs were traded, means that the transactions are visible to the public and could not be demonstrated as discrimination with illegal revenue.

"The accused did nothing more than move money in an obvious and perceptible way." However, the simple and obvious movement of money does not represent money laundering. "

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The contribution "Ex-employee from OpenSea asks court to reject insider trading" is not a financial advice.