[2018-04-03] Founders of a cryptocurrency backed by Floyd Mayweather charged

[orions.belt19]

Founders of a cryptocurrency backed by Floyd Mayweather charged with fraud by SEC

Two founders of a cryptocurrency firm that was endorsed by champion boxer Floyd Mayweather have been charged with carrying out a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company in question is called Centra and it raised $32 million via an ICO. An ICO is a process by which a company can issue a new digital coin in exchange for money. The coin has the potential to be used on a service offered by the company or traded in the future.
Sohrab "Sam" Sharma and Robert Farkas, co-founders of Centra Tech. Inc., masterminded a fraudulent ICO in which Centra offered and sold unregistered investments through a "CTR Token," the SEC alleged in a statement Monday.

The two people claimed to offer a debit card backed by Visa and Mastercard that allow people to convert cryptocurrency to U.S. dollars to spend it in stores. The SEC alleged that Centra had no relationship with either company. Sharma and Farkas created fake biographies of fictional executives and paid celebrities to tout the ICO on social media, the SEC claimed.
One of those celebrities, who was not named by the SEC, was boxer Floyd Mayweather. He posted a picture of himself in September 2017 holding a Centra card.

Authorities in the U.S. have been trying to clamp down on fraudulent ICOs. The SEC clarified in March that it is looking to apply securities laws to cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets. Jay Clayton, the head of the SEC, said that the organization is devoting a "significant portion of resources" to the ICO market.
Centra is not the first ICO that the SEC has gone after. Earlier this year it took action against AriseBank which it alleged raised $600 million.
Still, scams persist in the ICO world which remains a wild west in many jurisdictions. CNBC recently investigated a scam ICO called Gize which raised $2 million.

Read it at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/floyd-mayweather-backed-cryptocurrency-ico-fraud-sec-says.html?__source=facebook%7Ccrypto+

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[hatshepsut93]

Celebrity endorsement is a really bad trend, it should be obvious for any investor that advices from unrelated celebrities are worth nothing, since they have no experience and knowledge of cryptocurrencies. So, these endorsements are actually huge red flags that signal that an ICO is most likely a scam and should be avoided. In this case a lot of people were predicting that this ICO promoted by Mayweather was a scam, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's founders are now being charged.

[cr1776]

Many (most?) of these ICOs are scams anyway.  It should have been obvious to most people that they were, but the rose colored glassses have clouded many people’s judgement.

[Slow death]

as I had commented in one of the post, this is a story that will be on all the news channels and it would be nice if the news channels had not simply copied the statement from the sec and posted on their news sites, i hope the channels news will do a little more research to have more information on this case, because in the midst of it always has something exaggerated or something more serious and about the endorsement of Floyd Mayweather, he can say that he did not know anything and is normal famous people to be badly behaved and constantly involved in scandals.

[vit05]

Everyone who took a few minutes of their time to read the information provided by the Centra Team could have foreseen that it was something very close to a scam. It's amazing how many have treated that high of late 2017 as if they were casino chips. I hope more projects without a great planning are closed in this next year.

[Qartersa]

So Mayweather has been dragged down because of a faulty company/product he once endorsed. Celebrity endorsements has been the trend for the past decade, if my recollection serves me right. This bloomed even more when social medias became rampant especially among the youths of today. The latter, as we all know it, are more prone to being influenced by products endorsed by celebs because not only are they naive, they too have money to spend. With this unfortunate event, I hope this serves as an eye-opener for each and everyone to be careful of what we are endorsing because there are innocent minds looking up on us. In line with this, I hope this mess will be fixed accordingly; otherwise, this will be another cause of the downfall of cryptocurrencies' prices.

[Sir Cross]

So Mayweather has been dragged down because of a faulty company/product he once endorsed. Celebrity endorsements has been the trend for the past decade, if my recollection serves me right. This bloomed even more when social medias became rampant especially among the youths of today. The latter, as we all know it, are more prone to being influenced by products endorsed by celebs because not only are they naive, they too have money to spend. With this unfortunate event, I hope this serves as an eye-opener for each and everyone to be careful of what we are endorsing because there are innocent minds looking up on us. In line with this, I hope this mess will be fixed accordingly; otherwise, this will be another cause of the downfall of cryptocurrencies' prices.

Yes, celebrity endorsements has been quite controversial just recently. When Mayweather endorsed a project, some have even thought that this would have some influence on the price of bitcoin as it would boost it's popularity. Unfortunately for some of these celebrities, they do not consider first the legitimacy of the project before agreeing to endorse. Many are affected when they follow these celebrities and invest in fraudulent projects.

[CryptoBry]

Celebrity endorsement is a really bad trend, it should be obvious for any investor that advices from unrelated celebrities are worth nothing, since they have no experience and knowledge of cryptocurrencies. So, these endorsements are actually huge red flags that signal that an ICO is most likely a scam and should be avoided. In this case a lot of people were predicting that this ICO promoted by Mayweather was a scam, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's founders are now being charged.

Good thing that Mayweather is not one of those being charged. I think there was a statement coming from SEC that celebrity endorsement of scam programs can be subject to prosecution. Celebrities should be careful on what they are endorsing since they have the power to sway people's opinions and decisions.

[Apex Investments]

I think that celebrities need to be careful about endorsing companies in this space due to this very issue. 

The one thing that is a red flag to me is the crypto backed credit card. 

I've seen a number of scams make this same promise but if its hard to get a BTC backed card due to the volatility much less one backed by an alt coin.

[RadioYo]

We don't have celebrities endorsing our ICO.  All we have is a working product w/users, kick ass developers and the desire to see financial payments made via a Smart Contract to everyone involved in the making and recording of podcasts.


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[Benni Scherz]

The easiest way to spoil your image - connect with fake ICO
Just thought about Steven Seagal lol

[La Maree Noire]

Not the first  project with the involvmenet of celebrities occurs to be a scam
Those guys should be more wise in chosing what do they advertize