OpenSea Employee Out After Insider NFT Flipping Allegations
The market manipulation was revealed after the NFT community began digging into transactions in OpenSea Head of Operations Nate Chastain’s public wallet.
By Shiela Bertillo
In a blog posted by Devin Finzer, Co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, a peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs (Non-Fungible Token), stated that an employee used insider knowledge from working at the company to purchase NFTs, which would likely to go up in price, that were about to be posted to the popular trading site’s homepage.
Upon learning that one of its employees purchased items that they knew were set to display on the front page before they appeared there publicly, OpenSea stated that it is “incredibly disappointing.”
“We want to be clear that this behavior does not represent our values as a team. We are taking this very seriously and are conducting an immediate and thorough third-party review of this incident so that we have a full understanding of the facts and additional steps we need to take.” OpenSea added.
The value of an NFT was likely to rise through frontpage exposure in OpenSea. By purchasing them in advance, the purchaser would be able to sell them at a profit once they are displayed.
The market manipulation was revealed after the NFT community began digging into transactions in OpenSea Head of Operations Nate Chastain’s public wallet; taking advantage of the blockchain’s openness, they were able to find transactions that indicated that he was secretly flipping NFTs. The community members also said that the transactions show that this flipping earned the employee thousands of dollars or more.
The traced address is not explicitly named, however the address is the owner of a CryptoPunk NFT touted by Nate Chastain, a senior OpenSea employee, on his Twitter profile.
Accordingly, Chastain’s Twitter bio now includes the phrase “Past: @opensea” indicating that he is no longer with the company.
OpenSea has not publicly named the employee involved, but CEO Finzer says that the NFT trading platform asked for and received their resignation.
NFTs are unique digital items; either be one-of-a-kind, like a real-life painting, or one copy of many, like trading cards, but the blockchain keeps track of who has ownership of the file.
Source: OpenSea
This article is published on BitPinas: OpenSea Employee Out After Insider NFT Flipping Allegations
