A former non-fungible token (“NFT”) marketplace employee is facing prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, in an indictment unsealed on June 1, 2022. The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) alleges that the employee perpetrated a scheme to use confidential information from his employer about which NFTs would be featured on the marketplace’s front page to commit insider trading in the featured NFTs for his personal financial gain.

According to DOJ, this is the first insider trading case involving digital assets, and it notably relies on a theory that can be applied to a wide range of digital assets, whether or not the assets are regulated as securities.