OpenSea CEO Says Former Executive's NFT Trades Were Misframed As Insider Trading

OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer doesn’t agree with categorizing a former executive’s recent actions as insider trading.

What Happened: When asked for his views on the recent controversy that saw OpenSea’s former head of product Nate Chastain resign, CEO Devin Finzer argued that Chastain’s actions did not qualify as insider trading.

"I do think there was a misframing of it as insider trading,” he said. “We don't view NFTs as financial assets, so that does not apply. That's a very specific term for a very specific thing," said Finzer in an interview with Decrypt.

Last week, Chastain was found to have bought NFTs before they were featured on OpenSea’s front page and sold them shortly afterward for profit.

Hey @opensea why does it appear @natechastain has a few secret wallets that appears to buy your front page drops before they are listed, then sells them shortly after the front-page-hype spike for profits, and then tumbles them back to his main wallet with his punk on it?

— ZuwuTV.eth 👻🎃🦇 (@ZuwuTV) September 14, 2021

Still, Finzer went on to note the incident was an opportunity for the NFT platform to really set the standards and policies in place for what employees with confidential information are able to use.

“This was a relatively small thing that was done by an employee. We took action. That employee then resigned due to this, but we’re putting in place more rigorous policies around the people that work at OpenSea and want to participate in the NFT market,” he said.

“We need to do it in a way that we build really strong trust with our community — and that's really the first priority for OpenSea.”

Price Action: OpenSea is the world’s largest decentralized marketplace for NFTs and runs on the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) blockchain. ETH was trading up at $2,950.45 at publication Wednesday morning after losing more than 5% over the past 24-hours.

Photo: M.B.M on Unsplash