Lindsay Lohan, latest celebrity charged in U.S. for promoting cryptoassets
The actress Lindsay Lohan has become this Wednesday in the latest celebrity to be charged and fined. by the U.S. regulator for promoting cryptoassets on social media without disclosing that it was a sponsorship or the compensation he received.
Lohan is part of a group of eight celebritiesincluding singer Austin Mahone, boxer Jake Paul, four rappers and a porn actress, accused of illegally promoting the cryptoassets Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced.
With the exception of the singer Mahone and one of the rappers -Soulja Boy-. the defendants have agreed to pay more than $400,000. jointly to settle the case without admitting or denying guilt.
The businessman who paid off celebrities. has worse problems: Justin Sun, owner of the Tron, BitTorrent and Rainberry platforms, is accused of orchestrating a scheme to conceal that the promotion was sponsored and of manipulating the market to inflate TRX’s trading volume.
The SEC indicates that between 2018 and 2019, Sun directed its employees to make some 600,000 illegal TRX transactions. between two of its platforms to artificially create volume and also sold that cryptoasset on the secondary market without registering it, thereby pocketing $31 million.
The regulator’s complaint alleges that Sun and its companies offered and sold TRX and BTT as. an investment through pyramid “programs”.in which they instructed interested parties to promote cryptoassets on social networks, create BitTorrent accounts in exchange for receiving more cryptoassets, and “recruit” others on Telegram and Discord channels.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who in recent months has spearheaded other such legal actions, said the case is a new example of the “high risk investors face when cryptoasset securities are offered and sold without adequate transparency.”
Earlier, the regulator imposed notable punishments on two celebrities involved in the illegal promotion of the cryptocurrency EMAX: Kim Kardashian had to pay $1.26 million and former NBA player Paul Pierce, $1.4 million.
