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Joint business: Top model
Gisele Bundchen
advertised for the crypto exchange FTX, which was founded by
Sam Bankman-Fried
and has since collapsed
Photo: BFA / action press
"FTX. You in?"
Top model
Gisele Bundchen
(42) and NFL superstar
Tom Brady
(45) asked their friends and acquaintances this question in a commercial for the US crypto exchange FTX.
That was in 2021, at the height of the crypto hype.
In the meantime, the company has collapsed in the wake of the Bitcoin crash, like many others in the industry, thousands of investors have lost their savings and the US authorities are accusing the dazzling founder
Sam Bankman-Fried
(30) of "fraud of epic proportions".
The speculative bubble on the crypto market has burst, the price of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin collapsed from a little more than 46,000 US dollars to less than 16,000 US dollars last year against the background of the global turnaround in interest rates.
Now it's time for the lawyers.
Can celebs like Bundchen and Brady be blamed for investors' losses?
At least the lawyers are convinced of this and are taking class action lawsuits to court, as the "Wall Street Journal" now reports.
After all, it's about a lot of money.
Because not only with the former model couple there is a lot to get.
A number of other prominent advocates also banged the drum for cryptocurrencies and NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens).
Madonna and her cartoon monkeys
Pop star
Madonna
(64), rapper
Eminem
(50), tennis star
Serena Williams
(41) and more than 30 other US stars, for example, sang the praises of Yuga Labs' NFT collection "Bored Ape Yacht Club" (BAYC).
In order to become a member of this exclusive and elite club, interested parties must purchase an NFT in the form of a digital monkey.
Only those who own such a cartoon monkey are allowed to attend the exclusive parties organized by BAYC.
In December, the US law firm Scott + Scott in California filed a class action lawsuit against the developer Yuga Labs and its prominent supporters.
The lawyers accuse the defendants of artificially inflating the prices for the NFTs through their statements without disclosing that the celebrities were paid for their "official" NFT purchases.
Yuga Labs denies the allegations.
"We never paid anyone, famous or not, to join the club," a spokesman told WSJ.
Tom Brady and his ex-wife Gisele Bundchen have also been targeted by lawyers for failing to properly disclose their involvement in FTX.
In Florida, attorney
Adam Moskowitz
has filed a lawsuit for damages against FTX founder Bankman-Fried and his prominent supporters, including Brady and Bundchen, basketball
star Shaquille O'Neal
(50) and tennis player
Naomi Osaka
(25) belong, filed.
The lawyer criticized Brady's advertising claims as "distorting and full of important omissions".
The messages were propagated to inspire trust and trick customers into investing their money in what was ultimately nothing more than a fraudulent pyramid scheme, the indictment said.
A lawyer for Brady declined to comment on the "WSJ".
Class action lawsuit against Kim Kardashin dismissed
A class action lawsuit against reality star
Kim Kardashian
(42) has now been dismissed by the responsible federal judge in California.
The US starlet has been accused of driving up the price of crypto token EthereumMax and benefiting from it himself.
The judge justified his decision with the lack of clarity that investors would have made their purchase decision solely on the basis of the statements made by the accused.
In addition, he expects investors to obtain detailed information and not just rely on the zeitgeist of the moment.
No verdict has yet been reached on the other lawsuits.
Investors hope for groundbreaking decisions, because the legal situation is unclear so far.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission warned of investment tips from celebrities as early as 2017: "The recommendations may be unlawful if they do not disclose the nature, source and amount of any remuneration that the company pays directly or indirectly in return for the support."
However, the authority has not specified which digital assets this applies to.
And legal regulation of the crypto market is still a long time coming.
Although there is a cross-party draft in the US Senate, it is now considered highly toxic because lobbyists from the collapsed crypto exchange FTX are said to have worked on it.
How is the situation in Germany?
In Germany, too, stars and starlets have helped to bring cryptocurrencies to men and women.
Actress and influencer
Sophia Thomalla
(33), for example, advertised the dubious blockchain project G999, and the spot was even broadcast extensively in Times Square in New York for the premiere.
Rapper
Kool Sawas
(47) declared himself a "cryptoholic" in 2018.
And "The Lion's Den" investor
Frank Thelen
(47) predicted in February last year that Bitcoin would soon reach the $100,000 mark.
But can the celebrities also be held liable in this country?
"In Germany it's rather difficult because the Federal Court of Justice has made the requirements very narrow," explains attorney
Marvin Kewe
from the law firm Tilp, which specializes in test cases.
Among other things, he refers to the famous fall of the T-Share, which the late actor
Manfred Krug
promoted and which plummeted when the dot-com bubble burst.
As a result, many small investors got into financial difficulties.
But Krug could not be held liable at the time.
According to Kewe, the problem lies primarily in the causality: Was it precisely this advertising that tempted investors to buy?
In addition, unlike in the USA, no class action lawsuits are permitted in Germany, so investors would have to sue individually.
And so far, apparently nobody has dared to do so, as the German Protection Association for Securities Ownership explains: "The DSW is currently not aware of any judgment due to misleading recommendations for cryptocurrencies."
Investors should therefore be extremely critical of recommendations from celebrities - especially if they do not deal with cryptocurrencies professionally.