Last year, a millionaire socialite Kim Kardashian promoted a scammy Ethereum-based coin called EthereumMax was promoted on Instagram. While battling the class-action lawsuit, Kardashian is defending her innocence in the case.
On Friday, her lawyers filed a motion in a California U.S. District Court to try and have the complaint against her dismissed.
Kim Kardashian defends
After one year of the EthereumMax promotion, Kim Kardashian is still battling the lawsuit, which alleges she promoted the “pump and dump” token.
According to Friday’s filing, Kim Kardashian’s defense is that the token buyers are only relying on two of her Instagram posts—and in those posts, the celebrity didn’t give investment advice, she claims.
In Friday’s filing, Kim Kardashian’s position is that the token buyers are only relying on two of her Instagram postings. She elaborates that in those posts, she didn’t offer investment advice. Also, token buyers haven’t specified that they saw Kim Kardashian’s posts ahead of time or bought the EMAX tokens because of the posts.
"Crucially, no named plaintiff alleges that they, in fact, viewed either Instagram post before purchasing tokens during the relevant time period," it is said in the filing. Additionally, she clarified in the post that it was “not financial advise,” which may or may not be of assistance to her:
"Moreover, platforms like Instagram and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) are laden with puffery and exaggeration, such that ordinary consumers should know that they are not trustworthy sources of financial advice," was written in celebrities' defense.
Sued by misled investors
Previously, several investors sued Kim Kardashian, including boxer Floyd Mayweather and former basketball star Paul Pierce. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs experienced “investment losses” and attribute them to celebrities’ social media posts about EthereumMax.
Celebrity shared to her 228 million followers audience at that time “a big announcement” via an Instagram story where she talked about EMAX’s tokenomics.
EthereumMax (EMAX) is a token that no one knew anything about until celebrities promoted it. It runs on Ethereum, which hosts thousands of altcoins but doesn’t appear to have any utility. At the time of writing, the coin is trading as low as $0.000000004702, according to CoinMarketCap.
Why You Should Care
Influencers have the power to impact investors to invest, as many individual investors are still investing based on emotion and hype. While having an enormous audience, influencers unwillingly can drag their followers into investing in meaningless pump-and-dump schemes.
Read more:
Kim Kardashian Has Been Reported to the SEC for Profiting from the EthereumMax ‘Scam’
Kim Kardashian Sued for Shilling Sh*tcoin EthereumMax