▶️ Celebrity Crypto Endorsements Gone Wrong | EP#480

There are so many celebrity-endorsed crypto scams and terrible projects that have been promoted by celebrities. Let’s go through the many times this has happened to show you that it’s way too risky to get into.

Whether they are endorsing terrible coins they know nothing about, purposefully promoting terrible coins to steal your money, creating the token themselves and running a pump and dump, endorsing a project that fails or is a scam, or promoting something without disclosing payment, it’s clear celebrities are more than willing to rip off and scam their followers.

In my opinion, the biggest reason they are getting away with this is because no one is really holding them accountable outside of fines and some bad press. People aren’t boycotting people after they scam their followers and thus, they are getting the message that they can continue to do it.

Kim Kardashian & Paul Pierce – EtherMax – No whitepaper, little to no information, cannot find it to buy it or even check the value. - https://decrypt.co/73601/kim-kardashian-is-shilling-ethereum-max-too-what-is-it
https://bitcoinist.com/kim-kardashain-promotes-crypto-scam-big-hack-in-play/
Floyd Mayweather & DJ Khaled – Centra – ($CTR) –They both promoted this without disclosing they were paid and it turned out to be a complete scam to which the founders plead guilty to – They both paid fines - https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1068489910238289921
https://blockchain.news/news/floyd-mayweather-2017-ico-fraud-founder-pleads-guilty
Luiz Suarez - STOX ($STC) – He promoted this token and it’s down from around 90 cents to 1 cent aka if you invested you lost everything. The platform also has issues too. https://www.instagram.com/p/BYNd19wAeBD/?hl=en&taken-by=luissuarez9
John McAfee – Undisclosed promotion of at least 7 ICOs allegedly making over 23 million - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/05/sec-sues-john-mcafee-over-promoting-cryptocurrency-offerings-on-twitter.html
Faze team - $KIDS – Multiple members of the Faze Clan esports team were involved in the Save The Kids charity scam. Kay was removed from Faze Clan while Jarvis, Nikan, and Teeqo were suspended - https://www.insider.com/faze-clan-save-the-kids-cryptocurrency-scam-controversy-2021-7
Imogen Heap – Mycelia – Project that was supposed to help musicians and creators with blockchain technology that flopped and basically abandoned their project. Like most, it was just promises. - https://www.businessinsider.com/imogen-heap-ethereum-harry-potter-musical-blockchain-project-mycelia-2018-6
TechLead - Million Token ($MM) – Promised the world for this token that does nothing that he made – Now 92% down from it’s all time high and it’s still only a few months old. - https://twitter.com/techleadhd/status/1411859589155282947
Paris Hilton – Lydiancoin – Promoted this scam run by a former convict. People couldn’t receive their purchased tokens for 1 year and thus the project collapsed with its shady tactics. It’s currently down 97%. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/09/25/as-founder-faces-possible-jail-time-an-inside-look-at-lydiancoin-paris-hilton-endorsed-cryptocurrency/?sh=50e783a07cca
Logan Paul – CryptoZoo & Dink Doink – DinkDoink holders didn’t get NFTs and the whole project was a pump and dump shilled by his team who also happen to own the majority of the tokens and created the idea and design for Dink Doink without disclosing that at the time of promoting it. Also he used Adobe stock imagery for CryptoZoo which he claimed was designed by 10 graphic designers from scratch - https://cryptoslate.com/logan-paul-called-out-for-promoting-alleged-crypto-scam-dink-doink/
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/logan-paul-adobe-stock-images-nft-1647415/
John Wall – Baby Ballers US NFTs – Using imagery and art that wasn’t licensed. This is clearly copyright infringement and very lazy. https://www.bitcoininsider.org/article/127763/crypto-twitter-cries-foul-after-noticing-nba-star-john-walls-nft-has-fortnite
Nelk Boys – Roobets – Kind of ironic since they posted this in June - https://twitter.com/nelkboys/status/1401341933205671938
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/nelk-boys-stevewilldoit-wipes-gambling-channel-after-accusations-from-coffeezilla-1670406/
Marc Cuban - Titan by Iron Finance – He endorsed a coin that was trading at $65 promising over 200% APY which then crashed to $0.000000024 within a few days of his endorsement. - https://fortune.com/2021/06/17/crypto-titan-token-crash-mark-cuban/
Steven Seagal – Bitcoiin2Gen ($B2G) – Fined over 300k for not disclosing payments to promote the coin’s ICO. - https://people.com/movies/steven-seagal-pay-sec-314k-disclose-payments-promotional-work/
T.I. – FliK Token – Paid 75K in an SEC settlement for promoting Flik without disclosing payment - https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/rapper-ti-charged-by-sec-over-cryptocurrency-scam
Soulja Boy – SaferMars coin – Didn’t disclose payment to shill coin - https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/05/27/soulja-boy-tells-em-he-got-paid-to-tweet/
Elon Musk – Endorsing Dogecoin, Shiba, CumRocket, and more random coins to manipulate the markets for what seems to be done for his amusement. - https://twitter.com/elonmusk
Gene Simmons – Endorsing Dogecoin - https://twitter.com/genesimmons/status/1357944161849151488
https://www.loudersound.com/news/gene-simmons-is-the-self-proclaimed-god-of-cryptocurrency-dogecoin
Akon - Akoin & Akon City – While this hasn’t proven to be a scam, it seems wildly ambitious and currently the only thing you can do is invest in the coin with the hope that it will deliver. It has generally been trending downwards currently down about 70% from its all time high and one must wonder how Akoin is any better than using any other crypto alternative - https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17480674/real-life-wakanda-cryptocurrency-akoin-akon-crypto-city-senegal
Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan) – Cream Network Token – Started an ICO and then suspended it. Also, their Twitter account got suspended. - https://creamcapital.io/token-sale-suspension-the-road-ahead/
Jamie Foxx - $COB Cobinhood – Jamie Foxx endorsed them in a tweet for their ICO in 2017 without disclosing he was paid. The platform has gone through many issues and more importantly the coin is down about 99%. - https://twitter.com/iamjamiefoxx/status/909864791249846277
The Game & Jessica VerSteeg – Paragon Coin – The SEC forced Paragon to accept applications for refunds from investors and pay a fine. It was removed from the market and they claimed bankruptcy - https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2019/08/150997-paragon-coin-starts-processing-sec-mandated-refunds-for-funds-raised-via-ico/
https://paragoncoin.com/
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/33-10574.pdf
Here’s a list of some more who have gotten mixed up with a crypto project: Waleed Aly, Mike Baird, Celeste Barber, Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, David ‘Kochie’ Koch, Michael Rowland, Dick Smith, Karl Stefanovic, Virginia Trioli, Solijay, Gianluca Zambrotta, Lothar Matthaus, and Lionel Messi.
You can find some of these outlined here: https://medium.com/@TokenStars/25-celebrities-who-are-into-cryptocurrency-for-real-187ff89d83a7

Crypto scams endorsed by celebrities have gotten so bad that the SEC actually created a fake ICO that takes you to this page teaching you about scams and warning you: https://www.investor.gov/ico-howeycoins. They also issued this statement after the Paris Hilton scam: https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-potentially-unlawful-promotion-icos.

Since this method of getting celebrity endorsements has generally worked for scamming, there are also many scams run with fake celebrity endorsements. One I regularly see is fake live streams on YouTube ads pretending to do a giveaway.

After all my research, I’m left wondering who isn’t running a scam or doing something shady with cryptocurrency. My recommendation is to stick with good cryptocurrency that have products, not promises and to stay away from any celebrity endorsements.

Have you ever been scammed in the crypto space? Have you seen any celebrity endorsed crypto scams? What are your thoughts on celebrity endorsed products? Let me know what you think about this in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe!

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and is purely for entertainment purposes. What you see, hear, or read is my personal opinion, and any statements made are based on my views and should not be misconstrued as fact. My crypto portfolio may or may not be simulated

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