The former product manager of the OpenSea platform knew which of the NFT collections would be advertised on the home page of this site. And was buying them up in advance for resale

Prosecutors have won the first ever U.S. insider trading lawsuit involving digital assets. A former employee of NFT marketplace OpenSea has now been found guilty of using confidential information to make a profit.

A jury found former platform product manager Nathaniel Chastain guilty of fraud and money laundering. In contrast, insider trading litigation centered on securities fraud charges. Then Chastain was charged with wire fraud. This allowed prosecutors to sidestep the issue of classifying NFTs as an asset, not yet spelled out in the law.

Chastain, 32, was responsible for selecting the NFT section of Trending. These are the images that were posted on the front page of OpenSea’s home page. Getting NFTs into that section of the site usually resulted in an immediate jump in their price. According to the charge, OpenSea kept information about the NFT collections secret. Which were chosen to be displayed on the home page. But Chastain, in possession of this information, bought up dozens of the right images in advance. And when he published them in the Trending section, he immediately sold them at several times the purchase price, violating the confidentiality agreement.

The prosecution alleges that Chastain profited over $57,000 in ETH cryptocurrency from the scheme. The defendant himself claims that he never converted the proceeds into dollars. Consequently, he made no profit.

In September 2021, Chastain was asked to resign after his activities became visible both internally. And to outside observers in the crypto community. Who analyzed sales and tracked wallet transfers at the expense of blockchain transparency. The company then introduced a policy prohibiting employees from buying or selling NFTs. As long as they are displayed on the home page of the site.

Our experts note that Chastain was arrested in June 2022. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count. Although he will likely end up with a much lesser sentence. Sentencing is scheduled for August 22.

#NFT #Opensea #crypto2023 #cryptonews #nftcommunity

At the beginning of last year, OpenSea bought the NFT marketplace aggregator Gem. Together with the OpenSea - Gem team, it has been redesigned into OpenSea Pro, and now it is the fastest and most powerful of the available NFT aggregators on the market now.

OpenSea.io returns to the standard trading platform commission of 2.5%, but through OpenSea Pro you can still place your NFT on OpenSea with zero fee during the promotion period.

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Minting an NFT

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have gained significant popularity in the digital art world, providing artists and collectors with a new way to establish authenticity and ownership for digital assets. By writing digital items into the blockchain to ensure their immutable record, the process of minting plays an essential role in this ecosystem. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to mint NFTs and what their purpose is for creators and collectors.

What is Minting an NFT?

The process of minting NFTs refers to creating a unique digital item and recording it on the blockchain. The process ensures that the item is authentic and owned, since a Blockchain record cannot be changed or altered. Minting turns a digital asset into an invisible and verifiable token, which is distinct from any other object in existence. 

The Purpose of Minting

Minting in the NFT ecosystem offers a variety of benefits for both producers and collectors.

Minting for Creators : as a creator, minting your work allows you to establish provable scarcity and verified ownership. For the first time, creators can publish limited edition digital works, whose authenticity is validated on the blockchain. Ownership is undisputed and public, allowing creators to build special communities and perks for those who hold their NFTs.

Minting for Collectors : Minting NFTs isn’t just for creators, however. NFT projects will often offer early access to their NFTs via a mint. When you mint an NFT from a project, you’re the first ever owner of that NFT, since the mint is when it’s written to the blockchain. Oftentimes, participating in a project’s mint is like buying a pack of Pokémon cards: you don’t know if you’ll end up with something rare.

How to Mint

A simple process to mint NFTs can be found at OpenSea, a popular online marketplace. The company even provides a feature called “lazy minting” that allows creators to avoid paying gas taxes until they sell the NFT. Here are the steps to mint on OpenSea:

Set up a crypto wallet : In order to do anything on the blockchain, you’ll need a crypto wallet. This will hold your NFTs and cryptocurrency. We recommend a crypto wallet called MetaMask

Create a collection : Before you mint your NFTs, you’ll have to create the collection that they’re a part of. At this step, you’ll name and describe your collection, choose a category, and add any social links.

Upload Your Work: Once you’ve set up a wallet and created a collection, you can start minting your NFTs. Upload your digital asset to the platform and follow the instructions provided.

What to Do After Minting Your NFT

You can take additional actions to maximize the exposure and engagement of your NFT once you have successfully minted it:

 Grow Your Community: Building a community around your NFT project can be immensely rewarding. Try to engage your audience through platforms like Twitter and Discord, with a focus on sharing interests or themes related to the project. Active participation in the community is a form of belonging and can help to make your NFTs successful.

Market your project : The efficient promotion of products is an essential factor to attract prospective buyers and collectors. You need to identify your target audience and tell them what they’re getting for their investment in NFTs. Use social media to promote your work, connect with other NFT users and leverage the appropriate hashtags by using sites like Twitter, Instagram or Reddit.

The Minting process is a crucial step for establishing the integrity and ownership of NFTs. The creators and collectors will be able to verify the scarcity and ownership of their works by recording digital assets on a blockchain, which allows them to acquire unique and valuable NTTs.

#NFTS #blockchains #Metamask #Opensea #CryptoScope

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NFT virtual land refers to digitally ownable areas within a metaverse platform. Prominent projects in this space include Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Axie Infinity. NFTs are particularly suitable for representing land ownership as they are unique and easily provide proof of digital ownership. NFT land has various applications such as advertising, socializing, gaming, and even work-related activities.

Landowners typically have the freedom to host online experiences, showcase content, or gain advantages in gaming environments. Notably, well-known brands and celebrities like Adidas and Snoop Dogg are starting to invest in and utilize NFT land.

The value of a plot is influenced by its utility, the associated project, and market speculation. NFT land can be acquired through land sales directly from the project or through secondary markets on NFT exchanges like the Binance NFT Marketplace or OpenSea. Prior to purchasing, it’s essential to understand the risks and potential use cases of the land and the project it is associated with. Depending on the situation, renting rather than buying NFT land may be a more favorable option.

There are two primary methods for acquiring Metaverse NFT land. One can participate in a land sale conducted by the project itself or purchase land from other users via a marketplace.

Participating in a land sale often allows buyers to secure land at a lower price compared to the secondary market. Most large metaverse projects with NFT land have experienced increasing prices over time, making land sales more advantageous. Some projects sell all their plots in a single event, while others release them in rounds.

#WebGTR #Metaverse. #Virtual #NFT #Opensea

In a recent report released by NFT market analysis company NFTgators, it was revealed that the NFT market trading volume reached an astounding 900,000 ETH in March. The report also revealed that Blur’s NFT platform held the lion’s share of the market, with a 69% share.

The data showed that over 2 million NFTs were traded in March, with 601,000 users participating in the market. Apart from Blur, other popular NFT platforms included OpenSea with a 20% share, LooksRare with 3%, and x2Y2 with 2.5%.

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What sets Blur apart from its competitors is the average number of sales per user per month, which was found to be 4.9. This figure is more than double that of OpenSea, which had an average of 2.4 sales per user. Furthermore, the average selling price for NFTs on Blur was 0.74 ETH, which is more than three times higher than the average price of 0.23 ETH on OpenSea.

The report also shed light on the growing popularity of Bitcoin Ordinaries NFTs, with over 714,000 being issued in March alone. The network fees for issuing these NFTs exceeded 150 BTC, further highlighting the increasing demand for NFTs in the crypto world.

The NFT market has seen exponential growth in recent months, with various platforms competing for market share. With Blur emerging as a clear leader in the space, it will be interesting to see how other NFT platforms respond to this latest development. As the market continues to evolve, one thing is for certain – NFTs are here to stay.

#Blur #nftcommunity #NFT #Opensea #azcoinnews

This article was republished from azcoinnews.com

In the world of NFTs, there has been a recent buzz about a new address, 9082D2 (0x90…fba9), that quickly climbed to the fifth position in the Blur leaderboard. However, the excitement was short-lived as it was soon revealed that the address had achieved its rank by relying on price manipulation tactics.

According to SD, founder of NFT derivatives NFEX, the manipulator behind the 9082D2 address usually bids for a collection of over 30-80 items and starts to increase their bid sharply with large amount size for a short period. This results in a number of other bidders increasing their bid price along with them, which is known as spoofing the market and is illegal in financial markets.

After a while, 9082D2 sells all their holdings to the remaining bidders in one go, making a profit and earning Blur points. The uninformed bidders are then left with bags of NFTs at inflated prices, which they often sell for a loss to get out of the risk. This creates a cascade effect in price, and the NFTs get passed on to many rounds of bidders, resulting in losses until they finally stabilize later on.

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The manipulator then comes back again and starts bidding on top projects such as clone x, doodles, pudgy penguins, and moonbirds. The Twitter user SD suggests that to profit from this, one should not bid along if they do not know who has been buying. If they see the manipulator start buying, they should buy along before they pump up the price and sell to them. After rounds of dumping happened, it’s always a good time to start bidding on these collections as likely the price is just oversold.

However, as a community, we need to fight against these bad players. The Twitter user SD urges readers to comment below if they find any other players with similar actions and to team up and protect ourselves from these manipulators.

In conclusion, the rapid rise of the 9082D2 address in the Blur leaderboard is a stark reminder that the world of NFTs is not immune to price manipulation tactics. As the NFT market continues to grow, it is important for buyers to be aware of such manipulations and work together to combat them.

#nftcommunity #NFT #Blur #Opensea #azcoinnews

This article was republished from azcoinnews.com