Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, and Madonna are some household names appearing in a class action lawsuit against an NFT company. It is alleged that Yuga Labs used such celebrities to promote its collection of NFTs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
The list goes on, including Serena Williams, Paris Hilton, Kevin Hart, Stephen Curry, DJ Khaled, Snoop Dogg, Gwyneth Paltrow.
Even sporting goods manufacturer Adidas and Universal Television are named in the 100-page lawsuit filed by Fox Business.
Despite being extensive, others seem to have been left out, such as Brazil’s Neymar. Earlier this year, the Brazilian national football team star purchased two NFTs from BAYC for approximately R$6 million.
What does the lawsuit say?
According to Fox information, there are allegations that such celebrities were used to promote NFTs. After all, some of them did not even buy the images, but received them as a gift and later used them as profile pictures on social networks such as Twitter.
“Yuga managers [Labs] and Oseary teamed up to devise a plan to leverage their vast network of musicians, athletes, and celebrity clients and associates to promote and deceptively sell Yuga’s financial products.”points to the document Fox has seen.
Peaking at 144.9 ETH per image in April this year, the price of each BAYC today is around 63 ETH. While the drop may seem small, it’s worth noting that Ether (ETH) itself had a major devaluation against the dollar during that period.
ApeCoin (APE), also from Yuga, has lost 89.8% of its value since its peak, also in April, when BAYC’s NFTs broke a record price.
“In fact, the executive defendants and Oseary used their connections to MoonPay and its service as a covert way to compensate the plaintiff-defendants for their BAYC NFT promotions without disclosing them to unsuspecting investors”continues the document.
NFTs in free fall
Data from Google’s 2022 retrospective shows that the search for “What is NFT?” second in this category in Brazil. However, the peak came in January, followed by a major loss of public interest.
The metaverse also made noise this year, but also lost steam, losing the Oxford Dictionary award for word of the year to the phrase Globin Mode (in duende mode, in literal translation). That is, it seems that all the euphoria has passed.
Returning to Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape collection, it was also accused of racism in June this year, tarnishing the company’s image. However, nothing was proven and the case was forgotten.
Source: Live Coins
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
