The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged $1.26M to Kim Kardashian for social media promotion of a cryptocurrency offered by EthereumMax (EMAX).
https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1576897535427448832
Kim Kardashian failed to disclose the payment she received for promoting EMAX.
Ryan Huegerich and many other claimants filed a class-action lawsuit against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Paul Pierce in a California district court, for promoting an Ethereum knockoff, Ethereum Max (EMAX), according to a lawsuit filed on January 7.
At least, “not financial advice” is not a disclaimer of promoting crypto of any kind.
Kim’s influence did make the unknown token become an investment asset as a result:
A striking 19% of respondents who said they heard about the post invested in EthereumMax as a result.
And she claimed to make more money than an entire season of her reality television show that further demonstrating her involvement in the promotion marking:
While it is unclear what the precise terms of the financial compensation that Defendant Kardashian was given by the Executive Defendants, Defendant Kardashian routinely gets paid between $300,000 and $1 million for most promotional posts.
What is EMAX?
According to the filed lawsuit,
EthereumMax has no connection to the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum. This name association appears to be an effort by the Company and the Executive Defendants to mislead investors into believing that the EMAX Tokens were a part of the Ethereum network (when they are not). It would be akin to marketing a restaurant as “McDonald’sMax” when it had no affiliation with McDonald’s other than the name similarity and the fact that both companies sell food products.
EthereumMax is to build a robust and scalable ecosystem that fully maximizes the power of DeFi, creating a wide range of products for our community that encompasses everything from a deflationary token and a core stablecoin for processing payments to curing edge NFTs and exclusive events for our community, according to its whitepaper.
Of course, it sounds just like BS. This type of token puts every buzz words together that means nothing.
The court document further approved this assumption:
In plain terms, EthereumMax’s entire business model relies on using constant marketing and promotional activities, often from “trusted” celebrities, to dupe potential investors into trusting the financial opportunities available with EMAX Tokens.
If you check their source code, no devs are working, and codes are forked from open-source codes as usual.
And after dumping and rug-pulling investors, the token majority still controlled by creator(s).
https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x15874d65e649880c2614e7a480cb7c9a55787ff6
Pump and Dump
Following the EMAX Token’s launch and Defendants’ promotional activities in May 2021, the trading volume and price of EthereumMax surged. By May 30, EMAX already had a transaction volume of over $100 million, up 632% in just two weeks. The day before, it reached its maximum price of $0.000000863, which represents a rise of 1,370% more than its initial price of $0.00000005875.
However, this meteoric rise did not last long, and EthereumMax began to deflate immediately after Defendant Kardashian’s post. On July 15, the price of the EMAX Token hit its all-time low: $0.000000017 per unit, a 98% drop from which it has not been able to recover. On August 1, its transaction volume plummeted to $157,423, which is less than a hundredth of its initial capital.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereummax/
The result is the price will never get recover.
Celebrities' promotion of crypto in the future
This is to set a precedence for the SCE to prohibit celebrities and social influencers promote unsecured cryptocurrencies.
“This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “We encourage investors to consider an investment’s potential risks and opportunities in light of their own financial goals.”
“Ms. Kardashian’s case also serves as a reminder to celebrities and others that the law requires them to disclose to the public when and how much they are paid to promote investing in securities,” Chair Gensler added.
“The federal securities laws are clear that any celebrity or other individual who promotes a crypto asset security must disclose the nature, source, and amount of compensation they received in exchange for the promotion,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Investors are entitled to know whether the publicity of a security is unbiased, and Ms. Kardashian failed to disclose this information.”
Moral hazard or not, the SCE does make crypto space a better space.