World-renowned soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo has promoted Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchangehas been embroiled in more than $1 billion in damages lawsuits in the United States.
According to a BBC report on the 29th (local time), Binance users filed a class action in the United States seeking more than $1 billion in damages from Ronaldo’s promotion, claiming that they had lost investment.
Earlier, Ronaldo launched the “CR7” collection of non-fungible tokens (NFT) with Binance in November last year. CR7 is a brand named after Ronaldo’s name and uniform number and introduced a variety of products such as shoes, perfumes, and accessories.
At launch, the cheapest CR7 NFT price was $77, but after a year, the price plummeted to about $1 .
The plaintiffs in the current class action claim that Ronaldo, a world-renowned celebrity, misled investors with Binance’s advertisement. He also pointed out that Ronaldo should have disclosed how much he would receive when he partnered with Binance, but he did not.
Earlier, Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said celebrities should disclose who and how much they receive to promote cryptocurrency trading.
“When celebrities guarantee investment opportunities such as virtual currency, investors should carefully examine whether the investment is suitable for them and know why celebrities should make such guarantees,” Gensler said.
Meanwhile, Binance has been under investigation by U.S. authorities on charges of money laundering, violating financial sanctions and fraud, and founder Zhao Changfeng recently pleaded guilty to charges such as money laundering.
