A class action lawsuit has been filed against a group of well-known YouTubers, accusing them of promoting a supposedly fraudulent crypto exchange called FTX. The lawsuit claims that the influencers pushed the sale of FTX’s yield-bearing accounts (YBAs) to their millions of followers without disclosing how much they were paid by the exchange. The lawsuit is led by Edwin Garrison, a US citizen and resident of Oklahoma, with other plaintiffs from Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The YouTubers named in the lawsuit include Kevin Paffrath, Brian Jung, Graham Stephan, Ben Armstrong, Tom Nash, and Erika Kullberg.
The lawsuit alleges that the influencers hyped FTX’s YBAs as a safe platform to invest in cryptocurrency, causing losses worth billions of dollars to investors. After the platform collapsed, the influencers removed all videos endorsing FTX and posted apology videos instead. Other celebrities named in the lawsuit include Shaquille O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Trevor Lawrence, and Kevin O’Leary. The Golden State Warriors have also been accused of promoting FTX as a safe platform to invest in cryptocurrency. The case is ongoing and the outcome is yet to be determined.
