Moonbirds NFT Trading Volume Spiked Before Yuga Deal
Prices and trading volume for the Ethereum NFT collection Moonbirds experienced a significant surge on Friday following the announcement of Yuga Labs’ acquisition of the collection’s intellectual property alongside creator Proof.
However, there were also considerable spikes in sales activity in the days leading up to the revelation, which has sparked speculation of potential insider trading.
Insider Trading?
While it is not surprising for asset prices to rise following a deal announcement, the surge prior to the announcement raises suspicions of potential insider trading.
Influencers, developers, and community members took to Crypto Twitter on Friday to highlight this possibility.
Pseudonymous blockchain developer cygaar tweeted a sales/price chart for the week, showing the unexplained spike on Wednesday.
“Moonbirds chart before the Yuga acquisition tweet. Nope, definitely no insider trading here,” he sarcastically said.
Moonbirds chart before the Yuga acquisition tweet.
Nope, definitely no insider trading here. pic.twitter.com/UqV0DeXUr8
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) February 16, 2024
Another well-known pseudonymous crypto trader and influencer, Cirrus, jokingly referred to a wallet that had purchased over 150 NFTs from the Proof ecosystem in the past few days as “Nancy Pelosi’s wallet,” alluding to accusations of the U.S. Representative and former Speaker of the House trading stocks based on insider knowledge.
Cirrus also mentioned being in profit after the Yuga news.
Found Nancy Pelosis NFT wallet
80 Moonbirds, 71 Moonbird Mythics, 28 Oddities, and 13 Mythic eggs bought in the last 7 days
Sitting on a couple hundred thousand in profit after the Yuga news pic.twitter.com/VqImNT77tA
— Cirrus (@CirrusNFT) February 16, 2024
Last year, Nathaniel Chastain, former Head of Product at OpenSea was arrested and charged with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with insider trading in NFTs.
At the time, prosecutors in New York’s Southern District accused the 31-year-old of “using confidential information about what NFTs were going to be featured on OpenSea’s homepage for his personal financial gain.”
Chastain earned over $50,000 by trading at least 45 NFTs he knew would be featured on OpenSea’s homepage.
He was then sentenced to three months in prison for profiting tens of thousands of dollars through insider trading.
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