Despite Insider Trading, OpenSea Transaction Volumes for Blue-Chip NFTs On the Rise

One of the largest NFT trading marketplaces OpenSea recently admitted insider trading by its executives. The OpenSea executives were using proprietary information to benefit from the NFT sales.

These employees reportedly purchased items before being publicly displayed. The head of Product Nate Chastain, supposedly behind it, has been removed from his position. In its official blog post OpenSea confirmed:

This 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 said that it has initiated some countermeasures to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. However, the transaction volumes have picked up after dropping earlier this year.

OpenSea Blue-Chip NFTs In Demand

Interestingly, this hasn’t stopped NFT investors from chipping into blue-chip NFTs. The trading volumes for some of the blue-chip NFTs have skyrocketed in recent times. The data from OpenSea shows that the trading volume for CryptoPunk NFTs has shot by a whopping ~700% in the last 24 hours.

The recent purchase from Reddit’s founder has resulted in renewed optimism for NFTs. As we can see, trading volumes for some of the other blue-chip NFTs Bored Ape, Art Blocks, and Loot have surged considerably.

As we can see, the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace still remains a trusted place for people to buy and sell NFTs. However, the recent episode has put doubts on the platform.

NFTs have created a major rage in the crypto space with trading volumes reaching $3.5 billion. However, the momentum has seen a considerable drop in September. It will be interesting to see further if there’s a continued surge in trading volumes.