Kim Kardashian & Floyd Mayweather Named In Lawsuit Over Alleged Cryptocurrency EthereumMax Scam

A class-action lawsuit was filed on Friday, listing cosmetics mogul Kim Kardashian and other celebrities paid to endorse a cryptocurrency EthereumMax (EMAX) as defendants along with the coin’s creators.

The coin EthereumMax is not connected to Ethereum (ETH), which is currently one of the most widely-used cryptocurrencies.

The suit claims the coin’s creators undertook a “pump-and-dump” scheme, wherein they inflated the value of their coin via celebrity endorsements, then tanked the stock value by selling their shares, leaving their investors with no returns.

The suit listed plaintiffs as anyone who invested in EMAX between May 14, 2021, and June 27, 2021, and was “damaged thereby” by the coin’s crash in value.

Along with Kardashian, boxer Floyd Mayweather and basketball star Paul Pierce also began promoting the coin in May of last year. Mayweather and Pierce’s involvement saw EMAX’s value rise 632% in May, with Kardashian joining in the next month.

“Are you guys into Crypto??? This is not financial advice but sharing what my friends just told me about the Ethereum Max token!” Kardashian wrote in a sponsored story post that still contained oddly casual language which seemed to suggest it wasn’t an ad.

The day after Kardashian released her post, EMAX’s value fell significantly to an all-time low of $0.000000017, a drop of 98%. Unfortunately for its creators, they were caught selling off their shares before the price drop because they kept their crypto wallets unlocked (or viewable to the public).

Kardashian’s influence and reach should not be underestimated. Morning Consult, a data survey company, reported that one in five adults reported seeing Kardashian’s EMAX post, and even more crypto enthusiasts saw it.