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Floyd Mayweather, DJ Khaled Charged For Illegally Touting Crypto Offerings (theverge.com)

The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging DJ Khaled and professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr for failing to disclose that they were paid promotional fees to tout fraudulent initial coin offerings. The Verge reports: According to the SEC, this is the first time that individuals have faced charges involving ICOs. The Commission is accusing Mayweather of failing to disclose a $100,000 promotional payment and DJ Khaled with a $50,000 one. Both celebrities received these promotional fees from Centra Tech, Inc. earlier this year. Neither Mayweather nor Khaled have admitted to or denied the Commission's findings, but both have agreed to pay back what they had received to promote the ICO and are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional penalties each. "These cases highlight the importance of full disclosure to investors," said SEC Enforcement Division co-director Stephanie Avakian. "With no disclosure about the payments, Mayweather and Khaled's ICO promotions may have appeared to be unbiased, rather than paid endorsements."

8 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. fraud by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I agree with disclosure, but if anyone bought cryptocoin because of advice they got from Floyd Mayweather, they are going to be parted with their money sooner or later. I don't know what is wrong with America that allows this kind of advertising strategy to work, but it might very well be the central problem in America at the moment.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:fraud by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 5, Funny

      So Mayweather isn't qualified to give investment advice just because he can't read and gets punched in the head for a living?

      That's a rather elitist attitude.

    2. Re: fraud by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah you're right. I'm sorry, I let my privilege show.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:fraud by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      I don't know what is wrong with America that allows this kind of advertising strategy to work, but it might very well be the central problem in America at the moment.

      It's a terrible education system that doesn't teach critical thinking, because its primary purpose is to produce low-information voters.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. I decided not to go with Mayweather et al by bobstreo · · Score: 2

    Instead, I chose to go with my Nigerian Prince Crypto-Currancy blockchain based on the email notification of the inheritance of 20 Million Naira. /s

  3. Well. There are non-fraud ICOs. by gweihir · · Score: 3, Informative

    But they are few and far in between and even those are decidedly high-risk. The basic problem is that in a business-context, the blockchain does not solve a new problem, but a solved one. It does it with a bit different characteristics, but so far it seems not really that much better. Take, for example, a bank-to-bank money transfer. This is today either done via an intermediate exchange or based on a direct agreement between the two banks. The exchange charges something (not a lot, a transfer of unlimited amount is something like less than 0.01 cent in Europe if you have volume), and some banks want to get rid of the exchange, but really the most of the work the exchange does is to offer a technical interface to the clients so they do not have to arrange for one with each other bank they do business with. That is not enough to justify going to a blockchain solution. But what about being able to prove the transfer later? Banks already need to have revision-proof storage for that. Hence both source and target bank can already prove the transfer happened and cannot claim it did not. The blockchain adds absolutely nothing here.

    As it turns out, that pretty much eliminates the "currency" use, except for the case were you want anonymity. But most blockchain-tech does not actually give you that in actual reality. Monero, as a specialty niche solution, does and that is why it may have an actual valid use-case, but only if it eventually gets its volatility under control. As the cryptocurrency-craze very much banks on people that try to get rich, that means speculation and volatility, again making that "currency" actually useless as a currency. What is left? Supply-chain management? Revision-proof storage still has an edge there. Anything else? Not really.

    So this is it basically, except for a few special scenarios, but only ones were volatility and speculation is a severe problem. Hence in general, there is nothing but speculation in here and that invites fraud. The typical ICO is basically a pyramid-scheme and these are illegal for a reason. The disclosure requirements are there for the same reason. And violating them is at the very least preparation for fraud.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Re:Not so bad considering! by gweihir · · Score: 3, Informative

    You seem to have slept though the classes where they explained "separation of powers". Trump cannot send anybody to prison and for good reasons. Or are you advocating for making the US a fascist nation were separation of powers gets abolished?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  5. Re:Why worry about this by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    I'm sorry you live in the middle of nowhere and 5,000 people sounds like a full-scale invasion to you, but there's dozens of millions of people on this side of that border. 5,000 isn't even a particularly large rave, let alone a fucking army. You're hyperventilating over nothing.