Bored Ape Yacht Club, a well-known series of unique NFT tokens, is facing a class action lawsuit filed against parent company Yuga Labs. The plaintiffs allege that the company secretly paid celebrities to promote NFTs, thereby artificially increasing the price of digital assets.
Adonis Real and Adam Titcher filed a lawsuit in California District Court on Friday. It alleges a conspiracy in which highly influential celebrities were surreptitiously paid to promote NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club at “artificially inflated and misrepresented prices”. These misleading promotions are said not to reveal alleged celebrity payments.
“The Defendants’ advertising campaign was extremely successful, generating billions of dollars in sales and resales,” plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote, “and none of the Defendants ever registered these securities with the SEC.”
Dozens of celebrities named in the lawsuit include Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Serena Williams, Madonna, The Weeknd, Kevin Hart, DJ Khaled, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon and Steph Curry. He also points to music industry veteran Guy Osiri, one of Yuga’s partners.
It is also claimed that the MoonPay platform helped simplify the scheme. MoonPay helps the rich and famous buy NFTs without having to set up a wallet, buy crypto, and then deposit the token.
Course
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
“Defendants and Osiri used their connections to MoonPay and its services as a covert way to compensate Defendants promoters for their NFT BAYC promotion without disclosing it to unsuspecting investors,” the lawsuit says.
On an episode of his talk show last November, Fallon called MoonPay “cryptocurrency PayPal.” Also highlighted is another episode in which Fallon and Paris Hilton talk about NFT Bored Ape.
The lawsuit seeks to withhold $5 million from the defendants on behalf of the plaintiffs and “all other persons in a similar position.”
A spokesperson for Yuga Labs said: “In our view, these claims are opportunistic and parasitic. We strongly believe they are groundless and look forward to proving it.”
Celebrity names appearing in digital asset promotion lawsuits is nothing new. Larry David was one of several litigants against bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. In another case, Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather were sued for promoting an alleged crypto pump and dump scheme in January.
The law may be on the side of Yuga Labs. In a similar lawsuit against the Kardashians and Mayweather involving EthereumMax, filed by the same lawyer in the new Yuga Labs case, a federal judge dismissed it, saying investors should “act prudently before basing their bets on the zeitgeist.”
Bill Gates: NFTs are 100% based on the Bigger Fool Theory
Source: tech spot
