[2022-08-16] Mark Cuban Sued for Allegedly Promoting a Massive Crypto Ponzi

[Kakmakr]

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/11/mark-cuban-mavericks-face-lawsuit-over-crypto-voyager-ponzi-scheme/

Shark Tank star and the owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, is facing a class action lawsuit for promoting Voyager Digital’s crypto products. The plaintiffs claim that Voyager was “a massive Ponzi scheme” and Cuban “duped millions of Americans into investing.”

I reckon, the highest trees catch most of the wind... right.    Now it is news like this that taints the image of Crypto currencies in general, because Ponzi schemes use Crypto currencies as a payment option and then when it fails, people and mass media blame the payment option and not the Ponzi scheme that used it.

They do this with Crypto currencies, but when Ponzi schemes where FIAT currencies were used, collapse.... they do not blame the Banks and the government.  

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[bbc.reporter]

Is the source of the news from Roger Ver's cryptonews media site? It is okay, you do not have to be ashamed to post this hehehehe.

https://news.bitcoin.com/billionaire-mark-cuban-sued-for-allegedly-promoting-a-massive-crypto-ponzi-scheme/

In any case, if Voyager is judged a ponzi scheme, I reckon 95% of the whole cryptospace can also be judge as a giant ponzi scheme including much of the ICO coins and tokens. However, the skeptical me thinks that the plaintiffs only want a case to later settle and get money from Mark Cuban.

[Kakmakr]

Is the source of the news from Roger Ver's cryptonews media site? It is okay, you do not have to be ashamed to post this hehehehe.

https://news.bitcoin.com/billionaire-mark-cuban-sued-for-allegedly-promoting-a-massive-crypto-ponzi-scheme/

In any case, if Voyager is judged a ponzi scheme, I reckon 95% of the whole cryptospace can also be judge as a giant ponzi scheme including much of the ICO coins and tokens. However, the skeptical me thinks that the plaintiffs only want a case to later settle and get money from Mark Cuban.

Sorry, I forgot to post the source....

Yea, I reckon most people will say that.... but Mark Cuban is a very rich celebrity and people will look for ways to get their hands on his money. 

It is a pity that things like this happens and then we as a Bitcoin community get the blame and well known celebrities like Mark Cuban turns their back on the technology. (We need people like him to promote Bitcoin.... not Ponzi schemes or ICOs)

[bbc.reporter]

@Kakmakr. The Bitcoin community gets the blame for what?

I speculate that Mark Cuban is really an Ethereum maximalist and people like him will use Ethereum's switch to proof of stake to stengthen the argument that proof of work is harmful for the environment and uses too much electricity. Also, I have wanted to say this prediction, however, everyone might accuse me of antagonizing again hehehe. The prediction is Tesla will buy and hold proof of stake Ethereum.

[Kakmakr]

@Kakmakr. The Bitcoin community gets the blame for what?

I speculate that Mark Cuban is really an Ethereum maximalist and people like him will use Ethereum's switch to proof of stake to stengthen the argument that proof of work is harmful for the environment and uses too much electricity. Also, I have wanted to say this prediction, however, everyone might accuse me of antagonizing again hehehe. The prediction is Tesla will buy and hold proof of stake Ethereum.

The Bitcoin community might be the wrong word, it is more the technology and the people using it that gets the blame. So, when a Ponzi Scheme use Bitcoin as a payment option, people investing in it... make the link that they are actually also invested in Bitcoin.

So, when they get burnt, they say that they lost money on "Bitcoin" .....not in Ponzi scheme "X" or "Y" .....and they tell that to their friends and their friends tell that to their friends.... and that is how FUD is spread.  

The Bitcoin "users" are then labelled as participants in "Ponzi Schemes" ...  

[bittraffic]

It's unfortunate that Mark Cuban engages with Voyager, I think he can still be considered a victim as well as an influencer too. Was he paid for promoting Voyager?

Like some crypto influencers who promote crypto projects, they get to be blamed when someone spends to invest in projects they shill. BitBoy (Ben Armstrong) shares the same situation with him and I think more influencers will end up getting fighting legal action.

[bbc.reporter]

@bittraffic. Mark Cuban the billionaire who is also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks being paid by Voyager which appears to be discovered as being a ponzi scheme? No, he will not descend to that type of scamming. He might be one of the seed investors, however hehehehe.

Mark Cuban was also a large holder of Iron Finance's token when its stablecoin depegged and the token dumped hehe.

[dansus021]

well we should not trust influencer remember the doge that pump by elon the news all over the place there is some people made dozen of profit from it there is also lot of people lose their money and try sued elon musk

Novogratz also have tatto of luna before UST crash and lot more ( before invest try to learn it first is best guide )

[cr1776]

@Kakmakr. The Bitcoin community gets the blame for what?

I speculate that Mark Cuban is really an Ethereum maximalist and people like him will use Ethereum's switch to proof of stake to stengthen the argument that proof of work is harmful for the environment and uses too much electricity. Also, I have wanted to say this prediction, however, everyone might accuse me of antagonizing again hehehe. The prediction is Tesla will buy and hold proof of stake Ethereum.

Cuban is primarily a salesman so I really don't trust his judgement on the topic of POS vs POW.

[stompix]

They do this with Crypto currencies, but when Ponzi schemes where FIAT currencies were used, collapse.... they do not blame the Banks and the government.  

Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison for a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, Terra burned 60 billion of investors' money, and Do Con is free and tweeting all day long about new opportunities, Alex Mashinsky erased 6 billion of people's money and he's still on youtube giving advice how to lose your money in Ponzi schemes. How many years in prison did Karpeless get?

It's unfortunate that Mark Cuban engages with Voyager, I think he can still be considered a victim as well as an influencer too. Was he paid for promoting Voyager?

From the lawsuit and the facts presented there seems like he was the one that was actually investing in Voyager, although I don't believe he was that's stupid:
https://www.mavs.com/mavsvoyager/

Here is the full complaint, I didn't read it all (92 pages) but there is no mention of him being paid for promotion, and more being an active partner
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/robertson-cuban-complaint-usdc-florida.pdf

[bbc.reporter]

Like some crypto influencers who promote crypto projects, they get to be blamed when someone spends to invest in projects they shill. BitBoy (Ben Armstrong) shares the same situation with him and I think more influencers will end up getting fighting legal action.

On Bitboy, he filed a lawsuit against another influencer on social media. According to this article, it might be safer for Bitboy to avoid filing the lawsuit because filing it might bring more attention to him and what he is doing in those videos which much of them are about hyping a token on his followers and as speculated by some people, dump on them. This will certainly be news to follow, however hehehe. It will be another comedy show and similar to what @Kakmakr said, what Bitboy did might be blamed on the whole cryptospace community again.



BitBoy Lost His Lawsuit the Instant He Filed It

The YouTube cryptocurrency promoter is only drawing more attention to the pump- and dump-filled oeuvre he'd rather suppress.

On Aug. 12, crypto influencer Ben Armstrong, aka “BitBoy Crypto,” filed a lawsuit against YouTuber Erling Mengshoel Jr., aka Atozy. In the suit BitBoy claims that Atozy’s November 2021 video titled “This Youtuber Scams His Fans … Bitboy Crypto” caused him harm, including damage to his business and “infliction of emotional distress.” BitBoy, who had been widely accused of unethical and irresponsible behavior long before Atozy’s video, seeks $75,000 in restitution.

This was, unambiguously, an extremely ill-advised move, and it is blowing up in BitBoy’s face in a truly poetic manner.

Coverage of the lawsuit, almost all of it relentlessly negative towards BitBoy, has had far wider reach than Atozy’s original video. BitBoy is reaping the fallout of what’s become known as “the Streisand Effect,” when attempts to hide or suppress information have the opposite impact.

In this case, the information BitBoy would like to suppress is that he’s really terrible at his purported “job” of evaluating cryptocurrency projects for his YouTube followers. Atozy’s original video was focused on BitBoy’s promotion of Pamp Network, whose crypto, PAMP, would supposedly “only go up in price,” yet somehow dropped to zero soon after BitBoy’s endorsement. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT found back in January that a huge proportion of BitBoy-endorsed projects had lost immense value even before the current bear market downturn, quite likely costing his viewers serious amounts of money.

But that’s not just because BitBoy is bad at picking cryptos. He’s also deeply unethical, and quite possibly an outright criminal. ZachXBT revealed in January that many of BitBoy’s videos were not neutral evaluations of tokens, but undisclosed promotions paid for by the token creators themselves. This kind of “touting” is considered a form of fraud, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has regularly pursued violators under securities law. (BitBoy has since claimed he now discloses all paid promotions.)

Source https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/24/bitboy-lost-his-lawsuit-the-instant-he-filed-it/