UNITED STATES: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against several celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Ne-Yo, and Jake Paul, for violating laws by illegally promoting cryptocurrencies. The SEC filed charges against the celebrities on Wednesday as part of broader charges against cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his businesses: Tron Foundation Ltd., Rainberry Inc. (formerly BitTorrent), and BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., for the unregistered offer and sale of the crypto asset securities BitTorrent (BTT) and Tronix (TRX).
The SEC filed charges against eight celebrities, including the rappers Lil Yachty and Soulja Boy, the singers Akon and Austin Mahone, and the adult film star Kendra Lust, for “illegally endorsing TRX and/or BTT without unveiling that they were compensated for doing so and also the amount of their compensation.”
The SEC says that Sun and his businesses gave out TRX and BTT in exchange for creating BitTorrent accounts, joining and recruiting people to join Tron-related Telegram and Discord channels, and offering and selling crypto asset securities as investments through several unregistered “bounty programmes.”
The SEC chair, Gary Gensler, said in a statement that the case “demonstrates again the high-risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure.”
Except for Austin Mahone and Soulja Boy, all of the other celebrities agreed to pay a total of over $400,000 in disgorgement, interest, and penalties to settle the charges without arguing against the SEC’s findings.
Over the past few years, cryptocurrency has taken the western world by storm, with the top crypto coins now worth thousands of dollars. But, while the crypto industry may seem like it’s booming, a considerable number of countries have banned or highly restricted the use of cryptocurrency. China, Algeria, Nepal, Vietnam etc are some of the countries.
The cryptocurrency ecosystem is difficult to comprehend and manage, particularly for those who are new to it. In light of this, it might only be a question of time before the aforementioned nations gradually start to accept the use of cryptocurrencies, just as the rest of the world has done. Who knows, though; these prohibitions and limitations might continue for years to come. These are still unforeseen, just like Bitcoin itself!
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