Overview
- Federal prosecutors said they will not retry former OpenSea manager Nathaniel Chastain and entered a one-month deferred prosecution agreement that will end with dismissal once it expires.
- Court filings note Chastain previously served three months in prison, paid a $50,000 fine, and agreed to forfeit 15.98 ETH tied to the trades.
- A federal appeals court vacated his 2023 convictions in July 2025, citing improper jury instructions and finding the homepage information lacked the commercial property element required for wire fraud.
- The outcome, closing the first widely known NFT insider trading prosecution, signals limits on using traditional fraud statutes for NFT marketplace data.
- Platforms such as OpenSea have tightened employee-trading rules, and analysts expect only modest market effects with NFT valuations roughly $3 billion today versus more than $400 billion at their 2022 peak.