FTX seeks to reverse payments made to Shaquille O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, Stephen Curry, and other celebrity athletes who promoted the crypto exchange before it filed for bankruptcy. FTX’s collapse Sam Bankman-Fried started FTX in 2019 as a digital currency exchange platform that lets people buy and trade cryptocurrency. Customers began opening accounts on FTX to trade and buy cryptocurrency, and top venture capital investors began pouring into it. According to Tech Target, by January 2022, the company was worth $32 billion. However, that ended in November 2022 when an accounting
Several Black celebrities are facing lawsuits and investigations for promoting FTX, the crypto exchange that collapsed earlier this month, costing US investors $11 billion in damages. A Texas regular is investigating Steph Curry, among others, over payments received to promote FTX, as well as any disclosures made to determine whether any unlawful practices took place. “We are taking a close look at them,” Texas State Securities Board’s Joe Rotunda said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Rotunda emphasized that the celebrities under investigation “aren’t the most immediate priority [but] they’re
Kevin Durant recently launched a $200 million special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), making him the latest celebrity to endorse a blank-check firm. A SPAC is a “blank check” shell corporation designed to take companies public without going through the traditional IPO process. Durant’s SPAC will trade under Ticker symbol “NFNT.U” on the New York Stock Exchange and be co-led by Durant and his longtime manager and business partner, Rich Kleiman. LionTree, an investment and merchant banking firm, has also joined the dynamic duo as a sponsor of the SPAC, according to
