8 ms·

>> The SEC simultaneously charged the following eight celebrities for illegally touting TRX and/or BTT without disclosing that they were compensated for doing s

>> The SEC simultaneously charged the following eight celebrities for illegally touting TRX and/or BTT without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so and the amount of their compensation. • Lindsay Lohan • Jake Paul • DeAndre Cortez Way (Soulja Boy) • Austin Mahone • Michele Mason (Kendra Lust) • Miles Parks McCollum (Lil Yachty) • Shaffer Smith (Ne-Yo) • Aliaune Thiam (Akon) I had to doubletake. Never did I ever think I'd see this permutation of celebrities in an SEC report.

tmpz22 4y ago
If you're an E-list celebrity on TMZ you're a B-list on Cameo I guess.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
And a perfect snapshot for what a steaming pile of BS all this crypto-hucksterism was in the first place. I admit, I don't understand humans. I'm just trying to comprehend how anyone would think it a good idea to buy a token because any one of these celebrities hawked it.
- jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
  It's simple: they thought they could later sell it for more. Celebrities hawking it is "bullish" because other people (suckers) will see the hype and want to buy their bags. Unfortunately for them, they were the suckers.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Everyone knows it’s a scam, they just don’t know when the rug gets pulled. So they buy thinking they won’t be the last in the scam chain.
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      Then they barely understand what a scam actually is.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Of course. If they did they wouldn’t buy crypto, they’d be the one minting the coins and shilling them.
        ShamelessC 4y ago
        Indeed! Just wanted to make sure I’m on the same wavelength as the comments here ha.
      - cowl 4y ago
        Unfortunetly these type of Pyramidal schemes always have that factor: "If i just get in early i get out making money and someone else looses". There will alwasy be people ready to make that bet, that they are not late because those 10 people that were early and made a fortune make more impression to them than the thousands that lost (and maybe lost even more than they could afford too) only in this case the chances of that are predetermined. most of these "new releases" have their winner deck already predetermined before the launch, a closed group knows when they get in on the action immediately and everyone of the public, no matter how "early" they enter they are already late.
- goldenkey 4y ago
  A lot of it is young kids or college students with undeveloped brains and a lack of good guidance. Then a bunch is desperate needy or greedy folks who are thinking impulsively.
  - jkubicek 4y ago
    it's also just plain advertising. When the celebrities listed in these charges say that they're buying NFTs, a whole lot of people are going to see that and notice. The number of people that buy an NFT because Soulja Boy bought one is probably pretty small. The number of people who buy NFTs because "everyone else is" is much much larger.
    - pavlov 4y ago
      Yes, in advertising terms these endorsements are not tactical but strategic. You want to create an ambience where people sense that everyone successful is now getting into crypto/NFTs. That kind of diffuse group pressure is much harder to consciously analyze than “do I want to buy this thing because Soulja Boy told me to?” — and thus much more effective over time. Crypto seems to have been particularly powerful at preying on women and minorities who felt like they’re missing out with mainstream finance. This kind of highly focused influencer marketing within communities must have been a major contributor to its uptake.
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        Crypto is mainly a boys club. These celebrity endorsements came late to the party hoping to bring in a new group of people.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Is that really true? When I was in college some years ago I didn't fall for any scams and few of my classmates did either. Most of us barely had money for beer and textbooks, so there wasn't much to scam from us in the first place. Has the situation changed?
    - 4y ago
- thefounder 4y ago
  It's just FOMO. You surely experienced it until now. It's "irrational" because people make many irrational(emotional) decisions. Sometimes it pays off to ride the wave but we all know that most will not make it...however the potential upside is too great to "miss" it...until you lose.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    > It's just FOMO. You surely experienced it until now. I mean yeah. For years I’ve looked up to Akon and Kendra Lust for innovative and reliable financial products
    - thefounder 4y ago
      FOMO has little to do with "reliability" or innovation. I believe most people see crypto coins for what they are: volatile, speculaive assets. They know it's really just a pump&dump scheme and if Akon is promoting a specific coin that means the team behind the pump is "serious" (i.e pumping money into it) so there is a higher chance to get rich before the fall compared with a random s** coin. If you look at the stock market a big part of it didn't behave that different than the crypto market and that's due FOMO. Why did people buy stocks at insane valuations? Some of them were burned and I'm sure they though they will sell just before the market is going down.
- komali2 4y ago
  I bet you can think of some irrational things you've done in the last few years. I'd be curious what they might be. Let's see, for me... Well any time I got games in a steam sale recently, my backlog is huge and I don't have time anyway. Any time I spend on Twitter, I know I don't enjoy how I feel after. Plenty of times I had irrational excuses for why I didn't have to go to the gym on a given day. Made a batch of really good ice cream despite trying to lose weight. Etc. When I was younger I made some irrational decisions in stocks, now I don't anymore, I think if you get burned enough maybe that's what it takes? I too often wonder why people seem to need to "learn the hard way." For me, if a friend gets in a car accident, I listen to how it happened and make sure to never repeat their mistake, triple for motorcycling. But maybe its domain specific in that regard? Some people are good at being more rational in some areas rather than others?
- di456 4y ago
  Humans have a soft spot for snake oil. Always have, always will. "If it sounds too good to be true" vs "but everyone else is doing it"
  - taeric 4y ago
    The irony, of course, being that actual snake oil worked...
  - djbusby 4y ago
    With a lil bit of "this time is different"
- every 4y ago
  Sort of the adult version of being suckered into buying a breakfast cereal because of the cartoon characters on the box...
  - Tao3300 4y ago
    At least you got the cereal.
- zopa 4y ago
  If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same. And in fact it will likely work better if it’s not done rationally: anyone who becomes too conscious of what their motivation might be risks coming off as insincere. Wanting to connect with important members and of your community it a perfectly normal human impulse, and finding or creating things the two of you have in common is often a very reasonable strategy towards that end. It goes badly at the scale of modern celebrity, is all.
  - rcme 4y ago
    > If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same. Is the underlying psychology the same? As you mentioned, one is a smart career move. Your desire to emulate your boss may stem from your selfish desire to promote your career, not a desire to connect with important members of your community.
    - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
      The ape brain doesn't have a separate category for 'people you see on TV' and 'people you work with', celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends except the nature of parasocial relations seems to polarize their status; such that these people are seen as very high or very low status.
      - rcme 4y ago
        Citation needed
        chordalkeyboard 4y ago
        >> Our brains treat on-screen faces the same as in-person faces, explains Bradley Bond. He is a communication researcher at the University of San Diego in California. “We assign personhood to people we see in-person and on screens,” he explains. And we “process them in a similar fashion.” We are a social species. So we crave connections to other people. “It’s human instinct,” he says, and parasocial bonds help fill that need. https://www.snexplores.org/article/imagine-friends-parasocial-relationships-celebrities https://www.snexplores.org/article/imagine-friends-parasocia...
- mmaunder 4y ago
  Greed.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  > And a perfect snapshot for what a steaming pile of BS all this crypto-hucksterism was in the first place. "Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a giant dripping hairball."[0] –Grady Booch [0] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3689914/the-philosopher-a-conversation-with-grady-booch.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3689914/the-philosopher-a-...
Animats 4y ago
The last group of celebrities to get in trouble with the SEC started with Kim Kardashian, who endorsed Etherium Max without disclosing it was a paid endorsement. Then there's the whole Guy Oseary/Yuga Labs/BAYC promotion scam.[1] That's in litigation. Short version: all those celebrities who announced that they'd bought Bored Ape NFT's didn't have to pay for them. [1] https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-class-action-suit-kevin-hart-jimmy-fallon-madonna-1235456896/ https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-c...
- miohtama 4y ago
  Technically Kardashian disclosed it with #ad tag, but because it was settled outside the court, we do not know if this is sufficient disclosure.
  - dboreham 4y ago
    Nal, but: yeah no.
  - calgarymicro 4y ago
    Technically there's a '#ad' in there, but the 'sharing what my friends just told me' bit probably didn't help her. https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/Z242MUHVBZDTPM4Y3WSOVJFUHQ.jpg https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coinde...
    - hailwren 4y ago
      Honest question, given that it says ad — why would this be illegal? Would the SEC claim that she was not good enough friends with the people who told her that to call them friends?
      - polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Not a lawyer, but my impression is that a lot of time such cases are decided on what a reasonable person might take away from the text rather than what the text literally says.
arthurcolle 4y ago
Floyd Mayweather was also boosting Ethereum Max at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami - When he said "maybe one day there'll be a better crypto than BTC... like Ethereum Max" immediately the crowd started booing him (expected, at a BTC conf), pretty funny I wonder how he managed to slip through!
- raegis 4y ago
  Was he compensated for doing this?
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
    He was wearing a ETH MAX hat + jersey. Do you think he did that for free? Floyd Mayweather?
    - jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
      Maybe he really liked the tech.
      - dymk 4y ago
        Getting hit in the head a lot might do that
      - drexlspivey 4y ago
        Floyd Mayweather can barely read
        arthurcolle 4y ago
        Not sure why this is downvoted. I think someone put this to the test and he legit can't read. Isn't writing like the 10th thing in the CIV Tech Tree? Much before Computers/Mathematics I know the "maybe he likes the tech" is a meme but if someone can't read I'm pretty sure a crypto endorsement is almost 100% necessarily a paid product endorsement
    - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sergiomattei 4y ago
Lil Yachty lmao
iepathos 4y ago
Influencers aren't required to share the amount of compensation they're receiving from sponsors/advertisers. They are required to share if they have a material connection with their sponsors/advertisers though so definitely a fine coming their way.
tomcar288 4y ago
[flagged]
BbzzbB 4y ago
Bet they'll be fined less than they've earned?
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
What is scary is the small amounts that made these celebrities start touting scam products/pyramid schemes they had no clue about. $1-40k to tweet to millions of followers.
nailer 4y ago
Jake Paul was also the main force behind cryptozoo, another rug pull. Coffeezilla has a three part documentary on YouTube.

tmpz22 4y ago

If you're an E-list celebrity on TMZ you're a B-list on Cameo I guess.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

And a perfect snapshot for what a steaming pile of BS all this crypto-hucksterism was in the first place. I admit, I don't understand humans. I'm just trying to comprehend how anyone would think it a good idea to buy a token because any one of these celebrities hawked it.

jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
It's simple: they thought they could later sell it for more. Celebrities hawking it is "bullish" because other people (suckers) will see the hype and want to buy their bags. Unfortunately for them, they were the suckers.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Everyone knows it’s a scam, they just don’t know when the rug gets pulled. So they buy thinking they won’t be the last in the scam chain.
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    Then they barely understand what a scam actually is.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Of course. If they did they wouldn’t buy crypto, they’d be the one minting the coins and shilling them.
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        Indeed! Just wanted to make sure I’m on the same wavelength as the comments here ha.
    - cowl 4y ago
      Unfortunetly these type of Pyramidal schemes always have that factor: "If i just get in early i get out making money and someone else looses". There will alwasy be people ready to make that bet, that they are not late because those 10 people that were early and made a fortune make more impression to them than the thousands that lost (and maybe lost even more than they could afford too) only in this case the chances of that are predetermined. most of these "new releases" have their winner deck already predetermined before the launch, a closed group knows when they get in on the action immediately and everyone of the public, no matter how "early" they enter they are already late.
goldenkey 4y ago
A lot of it is young kids or college students with undeveloped brains and a lack of good guidance. Then a bunch is desperate needy or greedy folks who are thinking impulsively.
- jkubicek 4y ago
  it's also just plain advertising. When the celebrities listed in these charges say that they're buying NFTs, a whole lot of people are going to see that and notice. The number of people that buy an NFT because Soulja Boy bought one is probably pretty small. The number of people who buy NFTs because "everyone else is" is much much larger.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Yes, in advertising terms these endorsements are not tactical but strategic. You want to create an ambience where people sense that everyone successful is now getting into crypto/NFTs. That kind of diffuse group pressure is much harder to consciously analyze than “do I want to buy this thing because Soulja Boy told me to?” — and thus much more effective over time. Crypto seems to have been particularly powerful at preying on women and minorities who felt like they’re missing out with mainstream finance. This kind of highly focused influencer marketing within communities must have been a major contributor to its uptake.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Crypto is mainly a boys club. These celebrity endorsements came late to the party hoping to bring in a new group of people.
- nradov 4y ago
  Is that really true? When I was in college some years ago I didn't fall for any scams and few of my classmates did either. Most of us barely had money for beer and textbooks, so there wasn't much to scam from us in the first place. Has the situation changed?
  - 4y ago
thefounder 4y ago
It's just FOMO. You surely experienced it until now. It's "irrational" because people make many irrational(emotional) decisions. Sometimes it pays off to ride the wave but we all know that most will not make it...however the potential upside is too great to "miss" it...until you lose.
- tomcam 4y ago
  > It's just FOMO. You surely experienced it until now. I mean yeah. For years I’ve looked up to Akon and Kendra Lust for innovative and reliable financial products
  - thefounder 4y ago
    FOMO has little to do with "reliability" or innovation. I believe most people see crypto coins for what they are: volatile, speculaive assets. They know it's really just a pump&dump scheme and if Akon is promoting a specific coin that means the team behind the pump is "serious" (i.e pumping money into it) so there is a higher chance to get rich before the fall compared with a random s** coin. If you look at the stock market a big part of it didn't behave that different than the crypto market and that's due FOMO. Why did people buy stocks at insane valuations? Some of them were burned and I'm sure they though they will sell just before the market is going down.
komali2 4y ago
I bet you can think of some irrational things you've done in the last few years. I'd be curious what they might be. Let's see, for me... Well any time I got games in a steam sale recently, my backlog is huge and I don't have time anyway. Any time I spend on Twitter, I know I don't enjoy how I feel after. Plenty of times I had irrational excuses for why I didn't have to go to the gym on a given day. Made a batch of really good ice cream despite trying to lose weight. Etc. When I was younger I made some irrational decisions in stocks, now I don't anymore, I think if you get burned enough maybe that's what it takes? I too often wonder why people seem to need to "learn the hard way." For me, if a friend gets in a car accident, I listen to how it happened and make sure to never repeat their mistake, triple for motorcycling. But maybe its domain specific in that regard? Some people are good at being more rational in some areas rather than others?
di456 4y ago
Humans have a soft spot for snake oil. Always have, always will. "If it sounds too good to be true" vs "but everyone else is doing it"
- taeric 4y ago
  The irony, of course, being that actual snake oil worked...
- djbusby 4y ago
  With a lil bit of "this time is different"
every 4y ago
Sort of the adult version of being suckered into buying a breakfast cereal because of the cartoon characters on the box...
- Tao3300 4y ago
  At least you got the cereal.
zopa 4y ago
If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same. And in fact it will likely work better if it’s not done rationally: anyone who becomes too conscious of what their motivation might be risks coming off as insincere. Wanting to connect with important members and of your community it a perfectly normal human impulse, and finding or creating things the two of you have in common is often a very reasonable strategy towards that end. It goes badly at the scale of modern celebrity, is all.
- rcme 4y ago
  > If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same. Is the underlying psychology the same? As you mentioned, one is a smart career move. Your desire to emulate your boss may stem from your selfish desire to promote your career, not a desire to connect with important members of your community.
  - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
    The ape brain doesn't have a separate category for 'people you see on TV' and 'people you work with', celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends except the nature of parasocial relations seems to polarize their status; such that these people are seen as very high or very low status.
    - rcme 4y ago
      Citation needed
      - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
        >> Our brains treat on-screen faces the same as in-person faces, explains Bradley Bond. He is a communication researcher at the University of San Diego in California. “We assign personhood to people we see in-person and on screens,” he explains. And we “process them in a similar fashion.” We are a social species. So we crave connections to other people. “It’s human instinct,” he says, and parasocial bonds help fill that need. https://www.snexplores.org/article/imagine-friends-parasocial-relationships-celebrities https://www.snexplores.org/article/imagine-friends-parasocia...
mmaunder 4y ago
Greed.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> And a perfect snapshot for what a steaming pile of BS all this crypto-hucksterism was in the first place. "Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a giant dripping hairball."[0] –Grady Booch [0] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3689914/the-philosopher-a-conversation-with-grady-booch.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3689914/the-philosopher-a-...

Animats 4y ago

The last group of celebrities to get in trouble with the SEC started with Kim Kardashian, who endorsed Etherium Max without disclosing it was a paid endorsement. Then there's the whole Guy Oseary/Yuga Labs/BAYC promotion scam.[1] That's in litigation. Short version: all those celebrities who announced that they'd bought Bored Ape NFT's didn't have to pay for them. [1] https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-class-action-suit-kevin-hart-jimmy-fallon-madonna-1235456896/ https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-c...

miohtama 4y ago
Technically Kardashian disclosed it with #ad tag, but because it was settled outside the court, we do not know if this is sufficient disclosure.
- dboreham 4y ago
  Nal, but: yeah no.
- calgarymicro 4y ago
  Technically there's a '#ad' in there, but the 'sharing what my friends just told me' bit probably didn't help her. https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/Z242MUHVBZDTPM4Y3WSOVJFUHQ.jpg https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coinde...
  - hailwren 4y ago
    Honest question, given that it says ad — why would this be illegal? Would the SEC claim that she was not good enough friends with the people who told her that to call them friends?
    - polygamous_bat 4y ago
      Not a lawyer, but my impression is that a lot of time such cases are decided on what a reasonable person might take away from the text rather than what the text literally says.

arthurcolle 4y ago

Floyd Mayweather was also boosting Ethereum Max at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami - When he said "maybe one day there'll be a better crypto than BTC... like Ethereum Max" immediately the crowd started booing him (expected, at a BTC conf), pretty funny I wonder how he managed to slip through!

raegis 4y ago
Was he compensated for doing this?
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  He was wearing a ETH MAX hat + jersey. Do you think he did that for free? Floyd Mayweather?
  - jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
    Maybe he really liked the tech.
    - dymk 4y ago
      Getting hit in the head a lot might do that
    - drexlspivey 4y ago
      Floyd Mayweather can barely read
      - arthurcolle 4y ago
        Not sure why this is downvoted. I think someone put this to the test and he legit can't read. Isn't writing like the 10th thing in the CIV Tech Tree? Much before Computers/Mathematics I know the "maybe he likes the tech" is a meme but if someone can't read I'm pretty sure a crypto endorsement is almost 100% necessarily a paid product endorsement
  - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sergiomattei 4y ago

Lil Yachty lmao

iepathos 4y ago

Influencers aren't required to share the amount of compensation they're receiving from sponsors/advertisers. They are required to share if they have a material connection with their sponsors/advertisers though so definitely a fine coming their way.

tomcar288 4y ago

[flagged]

BbzzbB 4y ago

Bet they'll be fined less than they've earned?

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

What is scary is the small amounts that made these celebrities start touting scam products/pyramid schemes they had no clue about. $1-40k to tweet to millions of followers.

nailer 4y ago

Jake Paul was also the main force behind cryptozoo, another rug pull. Coffeezilla has a three part documentary on YouTube.