Shapiro Arato Bach Wins Second Circuit Reversal In NFT Trading Case
On July 31, 2025, in a second wire fraud victory for the firm this month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the wire fraud and related money laundering convictions of Nathaniel Chastain, the former head of Product at OpenSea, an online marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The government had charged him with “misappropriating” OpenSea’s confidential information when he made a small amount of profit from trading NFTs he chose to feature on the company’s website. He argued that this information was not “property” within the meaning of the wire fraud statute, and that a business’s confidential information must have commercial value to the business to qualify as “property” under the fraud statute. The Court agreed and vacated the convictions due to faulty jury instructions which failed to convey the proper definition of “property” and erroneously permitted conviction based on views about business ethics.
Partner Alexandra Shapiro argued the appeal and authored the briefs along with Jason Driscoll. The Court’s opinion can be found here, the Second Circuit brief can be found here here, and oral argument audio can be found here.