Lawyers hit Binance, its CEO, and several celebrities and influencers, including NBA star Jimmy Butler, with a billion-dollar shilling cryptocurrency civil lawsuit.
Filed Friday by law firm Moskowitz and Boies Schiller Flexner, the lawsuit says Binance boss Changpeng Zhao and his crypto exchange touted unregistered securities and paid celebrities to help him do it.
After a year-long investigation, attorneys said they are now seeking $1 billion in damages.
The lawsuit came days after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) separately for follow-up Binance, alleging the huge company violated trading and derivatives rules.
“Binance has partnered with defendants to promote Binance and solicit new customers, including through traditional television and social media advertisements with contracts with nationally recognized “brand ambassadors,” such as Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler,” Moskowitz shared with Decrypt read.
“Binance could not have reached such great heights without the massive impact of these influencers, who promoted these unregistered securities for multimillion-dollar payouts,” the statement continued.
The lawsuit also lists YouTubers and influencers Ben Armstrong – known as BitBoy Crypto – and Graham Stephan as defendants who allegedly received bribes for tricking people into signing up with Binance.
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world and its native token, BNB, is the fourth largest digital asset, with a market capitalization of $48.8 billion.
US authorities are more and more to the eye on massive exchange and how it is managed.
Friday’s lawsuit specifically mentions BNB and how its “consumption rate” (the number of tokens withdrawn from circulation) is determined by Zhao, representing “a classic example of a centralized exchange, which promotes the sale of an unregistered security “.