Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather sued for promoting an alleged crypto pump and dump...

[midian182]

What just happened? A group of investors has filed a lawsuit against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, and basketball star Paul Pierce for promoting the EthereumMax cryptocurrency. The celebrities are accused of making false or misleading statements about the coin “through social media advertisements and other promotional activities.”

EthereumMax, which has no connection to Ethereum, saw its price skyrocket early in 2021 when its initial trading price of $0.00000006 (on May 16) jumped over 1,000% by May 29. The increase in value came after it was used to buy tickets for the Mayweather/Logan Paul exhibition boxing match—Mayweather also wore an EthereumMax URL ad on his shorts during the fight—and Pierce tweeted about the crypto.

Another significant contributor to its promotion was Kardashian, who posted about EthereumMax to her 278 million Instagram followers via Stories. While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad. According to Morning Consult, 19 percent of survey respondents who heard about Kardashian’s post invested in EthereumMax.

EthereumMax's price over the last year

But EthereumMax’s price fell 98% the day after Kardashian’s post and continued to plummet, eventually dropping below its starting value. It’s alleged that the coin’s creators sold their tokens before the drop, as shown by their wallet addresses, making a lot of money in the process and leaving investors holding nearly worthless crypto.

Both the celebrities and the EthereumMax’s creators are listed as defendants in the suit filed in New York. Plaintiffs are listed as anybody who invested in the coin between May 14, 2021, and June 27, 2021, and was “damaged thereby” by the coin’s trajectory.

Crypto pump and dump scams, especially those in which influencers/celebrities promote the coin, are nothing new, and this isn’t the first time Mayweather has been caught up in a crypto-promoting controversy. Both the boxer and DJ Khaled were hit with massive SEC fines in 2018 for not disclosing that they were paid to promote initial coin offerings (ICOs).

h/t: Gizmodo

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/92959-kim-kardashian-floyd-mayweather-sued-promoting-alleged-crypto.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Hopefully more governments will start cracking down on these crypto scams immediately.

(I refuse to call them “currency”)

 

[Dimitriid]

I hope their entire defense is just calling Elon Musk as a character witness since he has literally done the exact same things and then some.

 

[Achaios]

QUOTE
While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad
UNQUOTE

What do you mean "it didn't look like an ad" after she included a disclaimer that's it's paid advertisement?

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

 

[envirovore]

A currency so legit anyone can create one and scam others with it!

 

[ScottSoapbox]

QUOTE
While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad
UNQUOTE

What do you mean "it didn't look like an ad" after she included a disclaimer that's it's paid advertisement?

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

This.

And 99% of Instagram is an ad so when in doubt...

 

[Hexic]

QUOTE
While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad
UNQUOTE

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

I’ll take two!

 

[Ashford]

Hopefully more governments will start cracking down on these crypto scams immediately.

(I refuse to call them “currency”)

Why do you refuse to call them 'currency'? Do you consider the word sacred and would n'er sully the name of noble tender by associating it with something people assign value to and trade?

Thank goodness we have people out there who will lay themselves down for the rest of us and make a true stand, with real consequences, and NEVER call crypto currency. If we don't have vocabulary, we have nothing.

 

[Ashford]

Hopefully more governments will start cracking down on these crypto scams immediately.

(I refuse to call them “currency”)

"Calling crypto currency is hard because it is tender."

See what I did there? Thank you I'm here all week.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

QUOTE
While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad
UNQUOTE

What do you mean "it didn't look like an ad" after she included a disclaimer that's it's paid advertisement?

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

Bro you nailed it SPOT ON!

For anyone who wants to invest in crypto... First invest in a coin that is actually being used for something. And second, if you want to test your waters with any crypto. You have to be ready to lose it all. It's a gamble you must accept. Bunch of cry babies in this country now a days that don't read or learn and feel entitled.

 

[Burty117]

No one else here find it a little mind blowing investors, with real cash to burn, were genuinely watching a Kardashian on Instagram and came to the conclusion that's what they should invest in?

Or read Mayweather's shorts and were immediately dead set on investing in that particular coin?

Really this is just someone who didn't do their homework and want their money back. Don't invest with money you want to see again I suppose. Investing isn't risk free...

 

[Uncle Al]

Yep .... time to bring back putting people in the stocks and public executions ... may not resolve the problem but will strongly cut down on repeat offenders .....

 

[QuantumPhysics]

"Calling crypto currency is hard because it is tender."

See what I did there? Thank you I'm here all week.

Interesting that the "value" of these crypto scams is denoted by the actual national currency: Yuan, Yen, Dollar, etc.

I guess one has "value" and the other doesn't.

I can't wait till the scam leaders drop the curtains on all those they suckered in.

 

[wiyosaya]

No one else here find it a little mind blowing investors, with real cash to burn, were genuinely watching a Kardashian on Instagram and came to the conclusion that's what they should invest in?

Or read Mayweather's shorts and were immediately dead set on investing in that particular coin?

Really this is just someone who didn't do their homework and want their money back. Don't invest with money you want to see again I suppose. Investing isn't risk free...

As I see it, when you put it that way, I think its rather amazing.

To that end, I find it rather interesting that people pay attention to these media circus moguls anyway. I've got better things to do, and anyone, IMO, paying attention to the likes of Kardashian and similar ilk deserve what they get. To me, there's nothing they say, or even can say, that is worth my attention.

 

[captaincranky]

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

I think I'd rather have the Brooklyn Bridge. Is that still up for sale, or did you already find a buyer?

 

[Hexic]

I think I'd rather have the Brooklyn Bridge. Is that still up for sale, or did you already find a buyer?

Already sold, but instead he offered me a timeshare in Maui that is too good to not be true.

 

[Bobbydpue]

Hopefully more governments will start cracking down on these crypto scams immediately.

(I refuse to call them “currency”)

If a virtual thing has no actual value how can it be a scam? How does someone crack down on the sale of a virtual object with no controlling authority?

 

[Michael7]

QUOTE
While the influencer added a small disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post to have heard about the coin from friends, and it didn't look like an ad
UNQUOTE

What do you mean "it didn't look like an ad" after she included a disclaimer that's it's paid advertisement?

If you'd fall for that irrespective of the fact that she posted a disclaimer, I've got a statue in NYC to sell you.

He probably means that if you share a piece of information with someone (and in this case her followers) that you know of from friends/gossip, it naturally cannot be an ad. But in this case it was an ad framed as a gossip, which was obviously done to deceive her followers (certainly the ones that did not read the disclaimer).

 

[Michael7]

Well, I am no investing expert but if you hear about investment opportunity from a celebrity, especially as risky as crypto, you should definitely stay clear of it.