Actress Lindsay Lohan this Wednesday became the last celebrity accused by the regulator and fined. United States of America to promote crypto assets on social networks without disclosing sponsorship or compensation that he received.
Lohan is part of a group of eight celebrities, including the singer. Austin Mahoneboxer jake paulfour rappers and a porn actor accused of illegally promoting their crypto assets tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) announced the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
With the exception of singer Mahone and one of the rappers, Soulja Boy, the defendants agreed to jointly pay more than $400,000 to settle the case without admitting or denying their guilt.
The businessman who pays celebrities has bigger problems: Justin Sun, owner of platforms Tron, BitTorrent and Rainberry, is accused of manipulating the market to inflate TRX’s trading volume and orchestrating a scheme to hide the promotion’s sponsorship.
The SEC has granted some of Sun’s employees between 2018 and 2019. 600,000 illegal TRX transactions between two platforms artificially creating volume and also selling this crypto asset on the secondary market without registering and pocketing $31 million.
The regulator’s lawsuit alleges that Sun and its companies offer and sell TRX and BTT as an investment through pyramid “programs” in which they instruct interested parties to promote their crypto assets on social networks, create BitTorrent accounts, and create BitTorrent accounts in exchange for receiving more crypto assets. “Recruit” others on Telegram and Discord channels.
SEC Chairman, Gary GenslerThe case, which has spearheaded other such legal actions in recent months, said: A recent example is “high-risk investors face when crypto-asset securities are offered and sold without proper transparency.”
Previously, the regulator handed down notable fines to two celebrities involved in the illegal promotion of the EMAX crypto-asset: Kim Kardashian $1.26 million and former NBA player Paul Pierce had to pay $1.4 million.