A number of celebrities, including Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty, have been named in a class-action lawsuit over an alleged scheme to “pump and dump” SafeMoon (CRYPTO: SAFEMOON) crypto tokens.
What Happened: Rappers Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty were among the defendants named in the 60-page lawsuit, according to a report from ClassAction.org. Other defendants include Jake Paul, Ben Philips, and Nick Carter.
The lawsuit alleges the celebrities named in the lawsuit promoted the SafeMoon cryptocurrency project in exchange for tokens. Their endorsements reportedly misled investors into thinking that the coin was destined for success, while failing to disclose the amount of SafeMoon tokens in their custody.
The affected investors claim the defendants conducted a “slow rug pull” with a multi-layered scheme that caused the value of the SafeMoon token to rise astronomically and then bottom out by the end of 2021.
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“On December 31, 2021, the price of the SafeMoon Token hit a low of $0.0000006521 per token, an over 80% drop from its height during the Class Period, which it has not been able to recover,” read the complaint that was filed Feb. 17. “As of the filing of this Complaint, the trading volume for the SAFEMOON Token has plummeted to around only $60,000.”
The lawsuit also points to specific tweets and social media posts made by celebrities over the course of the year.
In March 2021, Lil Yachty reportedly tweeted that SafeMoon is the new Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE). Around the same time, Jake Paul tweeted a meme promoting SAFEMOON to his 4 million followers.
Everyone needs #SAFEMOON or this will be you pic.twitter.com/r9DCQG0pmQ
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) March 27, 2021
At the time of writing, some of the posts made by Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty, Jake Paul, and others had been deleted.
Photo: Courtesy of Streamy Awards on Flickr
