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Socialite Kim Kardashian is facing charges by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for giving publicity to a crypto asset. The charges against the reality Tv star and queen of spotlight came to light in the SEC press release. This was for not disclosing the $250,00 paid to her before publicising the cryptocurrency, especially to her fans.
Kardashian is facing these charges along with popular boxer, Floyd Mayweather, who also made promotional content. Other celebrities who gave the asset their endorsement include Paul Pierce, who publicly announced his earnings from EthereumMax. As well as other insider trading offenders that are yet to face the same charges currently meted out.
According to SEC, Kardashian’s promotion of the crypto asset EthereumMax was deemed illicit -“unlawfully touting a crypto security”- and a compromise was reached.
On October 3, SEC’s chairman, Gary Gensler tweeted about a settlement by Kardashian with a $1.26 million penalty payment. Following Kardashian’s agreement not to promote any kind of cryptocurrency for three years. As well as her compliance to help the SEC with its ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, it is important to take into consideration that the crypto asset EthereumMax and the established Ethereum coin are not related to each other. However, EthereumMax is an extension of the Ethereum coin classified as ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The only affiliation eMax has with the famous Ether created in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin is obviously their names.
Prior to Kim Kardashians post, EthereumMax was a chancy, crypto token invention by some anonymous developers. Unlike Ethereum which is a decentralised, open-source blockchain, with smart contract functionalities, very little is known about EthereumMax.
In his post, Gary exhorted that endorsements by celebrities does not authenticate those products and services. He further declared that crypto assets fall under existing securities laws, as do other new technologies that mirror traditional securities in form and function.