The businesswoman and reality TV star Kim Kardashian and the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. do not have, as far as is known, much to see, no common relationship or friendship. But now they are facing something together that neither of them expected: a lawsuit. The two popular characters are the subject of a complaint filed on January 7 in Los Angeles, California, and for which they are accused of fraudulently promoting a cryptocurrency, so much so that it caused those who acquired it to lose large amounts of money. in part spurred on by publicity from Kardashian and Mayweather, among others.
The lawsuit has been brought by a New York private individual who lost money and is seeking restitution as well as an apology. He himself encourages others affected to join who have bought this cryptocurrency between May and June 2021, in order to convert the lawsuit into a collective one. It states that the two celebrities explicitly advertised a cryptocurrency sold by EthereumMax, according to the Reuters agency. With their announcements, they wanted the price of the currency to increase and, thus, achieve certain profits “at the expense of their followers and investors.”
“Company executives, in collaboration with several famous promoters […] made false or misleading statements about EthereumMax through social media advertisements and other promotional activities,” the lawsuit states, according to Reuters. With these procedures, potential clients are encouraged to invest quickly and massively in a cryptocurrency that is little known, so its price swells and, when it has risen a lot, the fastest ones resell it, which makes its value sink very quickly and therefore the rest of the buyers lose a good part of their money. If the evolution of the currency is observed, indeed in May —when they announced it— its price had a great increase, but at the end of that month, and especially at the end of June, it collapsed.
In June 2021, when Kardashian had 228 million followers on Instagram (she now has nearly 280), she posted an ad on her short-lived stories saying, “Guys are you into crypto ?” and then explained: “That’s not financial advice but I want to share what my friends just told me about the EthereumMax coin”, and then explained that the company had just put 400 billion tokens into circulation (that is, units of his coins), which represented 50% of his portfolio, and that he had made all of this available to his community.
The businesswoman accompanied the publication with a disclaimer, dropping that “it is not financial advice”, as well as the #ad tag (announcement, in English). For his part, Mayweather promoted the coin by displaying the coin’s name on the waistband of his boxing trunks during a fight.
In addition to the television star and the boxer, there is also another defendant, former NBA player Paul Pierce, who at the end of May 2021 posted a tweet saying: “ESPN [sports television network], I don’t need you. I have Ethereum Max, last month I made more money with this cryptocurrency than with you in a year: The truth will set you free. My own boss. Check it out for yourselves”, along with a link to the EthereumMax website.
The company itself, EthereumMax, is also named in the lawsuit. Although neither Kardashian nor Mayweather (or their agents and representatives) have said anything about it, the cryptocurrency company has. “The misleading narrative associated with the recent accusations is riddled with misinformation about the EthereumMax project,” he said in a statement, assuring that they will “discuss the accusations” and also hope that “the truth will come to light.”