Bitcoin Forum

The crypto community reacted with a mix of disbelief and amusement after reality star Kim Kardashian was fined for promoting the cryptocurrency EthereumMax (EMAX).

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined Kardashian $1.26 million on Oct. 3, for “touting on social media” about the EMAX without disclosing she was paid $250,000 to post about it.

Kardashian has neither admitted to nor denied the SEC’s allegations, but settled the charges and agreed to not promote any cryptocurrency assets until 2025.

SEC chairman Gary Gensler tweeted the fine was a reminder that celebrity endorsement of investment opportunities doesn't “mean those investment products are right for all investors.”

(Source: Cointelegraph (https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-crypto-twitter-reacted-to-kim-kardashian-s-1-26m-sec-fine))

Any artise must do a deeply research before they wanna try to promote cryptocurrency. Ethereum max was a garbage scam token. No doubt if SEC was charging him back with more than one millions USD as fines for his action to promote the scam crypto. This proves that celebrity cares only money but they didn't even care with what happened with their followers. There are so many dumb celebrities.

Not care too much.

Do we really care about this ? It's always happening while "Influencer or Famous People" who are suddenly come to crypto is just for promoted without any knowledge or even the Influencer it self understand about the asset/partnetshup they're doing.

All only care about money.

Serves her right. This so-called celebrities are the people who mislead massed into investing in shitcoins and scams since people seem to instantly believe in them. I think Kim was not the only celebrity who shilled Ethereum Max though.
Floyd Mayweather was involved too (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/13/investors-sue-kim-kardashian-and-floyd-mayweather-jr-over-crypto-scheme-ethereummax), I am not sure why they haven't charged him yet

While I do not care about Kim Kardashian at least those celebrities which are promoting scam projects are getting fined, which I think it is a good thing for the community.

After all how many people have invested in useless coins just because they saw that one of their favorite artists were promoting a coin? And while it is obvious that for people with a long time of experience in this market such a tactic will not work, it is clear that it works on newbies, otherwise those scammers will not take the time to try to get people like Kim Kardashian to promote their useless coins.

Not my first time to see that but i hope this may become my last time to see celebrities were promoting scam crypto again. Mostly of celebrities have zero knowledge about crypto. this has proven by so many celebrities who have been hired by scam project to promote their scam token.
A bit surprised to see the price of crypto that promoted by kim increased 100% which doesn't even make sense for me to see that.

I think it is the right step from the SEC in order to protect the general public from FOMO that occurs, I support the SEC and such preventive measures should be further enhanced in order to provide a healthy climate for the investment world, especially crypto

I think its nothing to her. SEC just reminding that dont aabuse your stance or position on social media to earn money. Well its not that isnt allowed but we are talking about cryptocurrency here. She just promoted it without probably knowing what it is or at least do some background check and review of the project.

What if there are some who buys a lot and loss a lot on the process, can Kardashian be liable on that provided she told a lot of good words about the project? The only thing is crypto is decentralized its your choice to invest here. But its not the reality now. If you are in the wrong investment youll get suffer a lot.

I don't think that this will be the last though, it's easy money for celebrities. But at least they should do their own research before trying to promote any crypto project. Or better yet just invest on crypto that is solid, like BTC or ETH.


Isn't it that's what is the mandate of SEC to protect their consumers.

But the thing is this celebrities is such an influencer is taking advantage of their popularity like Kim K. So for us, we should also be careful and not get into this celebrities, it's our hard earn money anyway, so we must be careful.

Well! luckily for her they just settle on that amount and do not make any things hard for her. This is actually good news because right now celebrities will have an idea of how dangerous it is to promote random tokens or coins without knowing the reality of it. Most of the time, they will just take the payment and post some promotions about it, making it just an ordinary product but in reality, they could make fatal mistakes where they could ruin an innocent life by letting newbie investors invest in these random cryptocurrencies.

People act as if 1 million dollars is nothing to Kardashian's, and yes it may not be as big as it is for you or me, but they still feel that burn when they get it, which means this is a good lesson for them, and for anyone else. Do not promote projects for money without disclosing it, and if you disclose it then we know that you got paid for it and not really support it.

What we saw was Kim actually promoting and "liking" a project, some people may invest to the hype of that, and now that we know it is not real, we can say that she didn't even cared about the project. SEC needs to stop people who would do that, because it could cause many people to lose money.

You all need to do research on Kim Kardashian's net worth before saying anything, it's like asking her to pay 70$ out of her 100,000$ bank account, SEC is forming like they are protecting us but that's not true, this is way too small to make her think that it's wrong to promote crap projects if she has another chance in the future I bet she will take it, again.

The SEC has been like a circus lately.

https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1549414159221227523?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
"Under Chair Gensler, the SEC has become a power-hungry regulator, politicizing enforcement, baiting companies to “come in and talk” to the Commission, then hitting them with enforcement actions, discouraging good-faith cooperation."

Boxer Mike Tyson says he is ‘All In’ on Solana (SOL)
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/6765094

Or fine Elon Musk for pumping Dogecoin

The grievance with Kim is that she took money to promote a cryptocurrency she really doesn't know anything about, taking advantage of her fan base. If it had not been discovered that she was paid for the promotion, I guess the SEC would not have paid too much attention to it. Tyson seems to personally just have an interest in SOLANA as well as in NFT's, hence he is always vocal about it. If it is discovered that he is paid to do so, The SEC may slam him with fines as well, because it will in that situation be no different from Kim's case. If they don't, that's them being partial.

Yeah you're right about that but repeating the same mistkae will put here into the big problem. It would better if he will not be promoting the scam token again. ethereum max is a very well known as a scam token and it can be identified easily without even looking on its project. Its name has been representing if it's a scam project. That means kim needs to learn from his mistake.

EthereumMax seemed familiar. I first saw this name in the trunks of a popular boxer, I think it was Tank Davis. I was curious about it but I never tried to search for it too. Kim Kardashian deserved it. Anyways, this should not be much of a big deal to Kim. That penalty is just like dust to her.

These celebrities should be liable for the products and services they endorsed. It is part of the so-called social responsibility of a good citizen.

What I found a bit intriguing is her agreeing to settle the $1.26 million fine over the miserly $250,000 she was paid. This just clearly displays the typical behavior of most of the crypto influencers and celebs who will only promote any project because of the money. Some actions do have consequences I guess Mrs. Kardashian just found that out a hard way.

All these media stars are almost always promoting outright scam and garbage. As one famous investor said, if I see a crypto product promoted by a famous person from the world of Internet, sports, etc., then I will refuse to invest in this project. Think about previous years, for example Floyd Mayweather ads, when he was advertising different ICO in social networks. No better than the current situation with Kim Kardashian, who advertises outright garbage. Then it all ends up in scandalous revelations and lawsuits.

Isn't it that's what is the mandate of SEC to protect their consumers.

But the thing is this celebrities is such an influencer is taking advantage of their popularity like Kim K. So for us, we should also be careful and not get into this celebrities, it's our hard earn money anyway, so we must be careful.
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It's true that he is an influencer but the effect he does is huge, so he shouldn't overdo it and he should be more selective in accepting endorsements and if necessary make a footnote that it's an advertisement.

The problem is sometime their managements who handled it was too lazy to dig it even deeper before try to promote it. I meant the celebrity may not know about that as their managements didn't even told about that. I do believe celebrities will not be in contact directly with the scammers who wanna try to use their service to promote the scam token. This time SEC gives celebrity another warn not to promote scam token.

This should be common sense, I mean if an artist wants to promote a product then that is fine, but when they begin to promote some sort of investment option then that is when very clear lines should be in place.

After all if you buy a product and you do not like it you can always return it and get your money back, but if you invest in a  scam this is not possible, so celebrities need to be held responsible for the investments they promote so they stop promoting scams.

Well she did he violate the anti-touting provision of federal securities law by using her celebrity status, power as a social media Influencer, and manipulating her following through her looks to allow her fans to get scammed.
I feel good that she is getting what she deserves and if she wasnt so rich and famous maybe she would have to serve some time in jail.  I hope she loses some fan base but I don't know if she will since her fans are so loyal and they will forgive her.

I doubt she will lose many fans over this, it is obvious that she knows how to manipulate her image and the media to escape the consequences of most of her actions.

And we know this is true as there is no other way to explain how someone like her can be so famous when she literary does nothing and yet people love her, so while the fine is higher than what she got paid she can easily pay it and recover whatever money that she lost in just a few days.

Is it possible that SEC doing this will have a positive effect on reducing the number of people investing in crypto scam?
Because usually celebrity fans are very loyal to them and always consider what they say as the truth so they always follow what the celebrity says.
But what Kim did proves that many rich people only care about how to continue to increase their coffers of money even though it will make many of their followers suffer.
I don't care what celebrities do through their social media about crypto because this place has become a good place to get information about cryptocurrencies

It could be, that's there mandate as far as I know, inform people so that they won't fall for scam.

And if I'm not mistaken, many stars do really promote scam projects in the past but they just got slap in the wrist. And although Kim has been tag with millions of dollars I think it is quite small as a penalty.

Hopefully there will be no more scam attempts in the name of celebrity and let this be a lesson for fans not to fall for it an they have to check everything out and not just because their favorite celeb endorse it, it means that the project is going to be successful and not be scamming people.

Products are not merely jewelry or everyday items, but sometimes medicines, functional foods...in my country many artists abuse their reputation to advertise any brand as long as they get money. This is a very dangerous loophole, unbranded trademarks are also marketed by famous artists, easily misleading the general user. Many people in my locality were hospitalized after using products advertised by them, after some allegations they deleted all marketing posts and deemed them irrelevant. The action of the SEC is completely right and I hope that countries should also regulate the marketing of artists' products, because they are public figures, they have a large following.

Kim Kardashian is a SHE by the way but doesn't this look really unprofessional of her? Of cause I believe she knows less about cryptocurrencies but will just want to use their celeb personality to make money, now she is paying more than she collected for the hype  ;D and people will invest in the project just cos she promoted it. A good lesson for her I must say.

Yeah, funny how her PA or agency (whatever they are called) allowed this type of thing to happen, shouldn't a deal like this be properly vetted by the right people whose job it is to check stuff like this before commitment? It is very disappointing how she got mixed up with a fake project for far less than what she is being charged for right now.
This will definitely serve as a warning to the rest of the celebs who think they can use their popularity to promote any project without doing any thorough vetting before promoting.

A person with a common sense already know this. Celebs are mostly being paid to advertise the things that they are showing on their timeline and the real products that they use are hidden from the camera. But, sometimes it's about the greediness of the people to earn.

They invest on the coin promoted by Kim because they think other people are going to do the same and this can make the coin pump easily. They are lucky if it did and then they sold on the right time before the collapse happened. I am sure it will, now that the reports are out about Kim being involved in the issue of promoting a crypto coin. Kim must be full of disappointment because she is going to pay more, than the money that she got from Emax.

It's quite unfortunate that Kim lost over a million dollars for promoting a project. She needs to be mindful of the fact that several people look up to her and she ought to do the necessary checks to ensure that she's promoting the right brands. I understand that she now has a bad feeling about cryptocurrency projects that explains why she won't be promoting another for the next three years.

I think she didn't disclosed that she was paid to do the promotion, Obviously her management didn't know it and I think Kim Kardashian take all the promotion by herself. Well it is the consequence of promoting without further research, She didn't talk to her management which can do the research and decision so I think she deserves it. We all should hope that in the next bull run, Celebrity promotions won't be effective as much what effectiveness it has last bull market so that people won't be deceived investing on a trash projects.

A lot of celebrities and influencers introduced coins and they still do. Thousands of people have been harmed by following them. Influencers only look at the deals they made, the rest is not important anyway. People are impressed just because they are popular and they invest their money without question. Because they are rich, maybe they know something, maybe they make themselves believe that I can be too? if that's the case, that's too bad. Anyway, influencers will continue to promote, no matter how much the SEC penalizes them. I don't think it will be a deterrent.

When I read this news I was wondering the following:

when a celebrity receives a business proposal, and in this case the business would be to promote a particular altcoin, does this celebrity receive the proposal by email, instagram, twitter but does this celebrity not make an appointment in person to discuss legal aspects with the altcoin owner? If you don't mark, how do you sign the contract? Or will they skip this step and do everything informally? another thing is that the celebrity doesn't have legal advisors to give them advice on these legal issues and doesn't have marketing advisors who are able to research before if the altcoin is not a scam to avoid tarnishing the celebrity's image? what is really missing for so many celebrities to have promoted shitcoin?


the question I ask: what is really missing for so many celebrities to have promoted shitcoin?

because celebrities are rich people, they don't even need the money these shitcoins give, but how is it possible that celebrities don't have legal advisors and people who are able to do research on these scam projects and alert celebrities?

I also think that the fine amount is nothing to what Kim Kardashian possibly gained by promoting the scam project.


I think it isn't about abuse, but rather Kim Kardashian is promoting a scam company and earning from it, whether she knows or not that the company is a scam, promoting the scam company and influencing people to invest in it somehow needs to be punished.  The reason for the $1.26M fine.


The only liability Kardashian has is her influence that drives the masses into joining the scam compay.

They are paid huge royalties for promotion, which allows them to make money on that coin, as opposed to the crowd of naive investors who believed the Influencer. Influencers have always gotten a lot of money for promoting a product to their audience. I think if there were any modest sums involved, these celebrities wouldn't cooperate. If they're spending their time and their media resources, that means there are some extremely lucrative contracts out there.

Yes, and I would add that this superstars are not going to look at what project it is, and who is the people behind. As long as they are going to make money out it and tons then, they will ride and promote it whatever they can on their social media.

It's that the SEC really caught on her, and setting some examples on that the next celebrities who are going to be approach by this project will have second thoughts whether to endorse it or not. And I so I say this is a good move by SEC to promote future investors from getting scam again.

As long as they are getting paid, they’ll accept it without understanding the project itself.
You can only know a limited celebrities who really cares about their projects they are promoting and it’s good to follow them instead of the most popular celebrities. We should not depend on anyone though, they can spread awareness but it’s our job to analyze it and confirm if it’s a good project or not. Our decision at the end should always be based on the data and not based on anyone’s advice, you’ll succeed more if you do your own strategy.

That is exactly what happens and this is a very dangerous attitude to have, in the long run this attitude is bound to cause massive losses because it is unlikely that you will time the market perfectly and at some point you will be the one holding a bunch of useless coins no one cares about.

With this in mind it is important to only invest in coins which have a good potential and avoid those useless coins, since it is way more likely we could irremediably reduce our capital instead of increasing it with maneuvers like that.

It doesn’t matter how the Twitter community reacted at all! What Kim did is a law violation she was made to answer for. Period. Anyway, one less: Kardashian also agreed to not promote any crypto asset securities for three years.

Do not follow any influencers as they will promote anything if they get the money like you mentioned. I have not seen any genuine investors who take their time checking the product. We see those analysis in this forum mostly without any bias if there is something fishy about a project which has got a lot of hype.
The rest of them are paid promoters and Kim Kardashian does have a huge dumb following so it is necessary to restrict these type of promotions :D.

It is obvious that she does not care about her fans and followers but she surely cares about herself, was it really that difficult for her to think that promoting something like this was a bad idea?

Promoting a bad product at most will cause people to lose a few dollars, but promoting a financial product which is a scam can cause people to lose a massive amount of money not only to others but even to herself, and even if the fine is something which she can easily pay she could have easily avoided this if a little bit of common sense was used before accepting such a deal.