On 3 October, the SEC issued a press release announcing that Kim Kardashian had to pay a fine of 26 million US dollars for not disclosing to the public that she had received financial compensation to promote EthereumMax.
To better understand the news, let’s take a closer look at the EthereumMax-case:
Kim Kardashian currently has 331 million followers on Instagram. On this platform, the celebrity introduced a cryptocurrency coin from EthereumMax in June 2021. Kardashian claimed to know this coin from friends and concealed the payment of 250,000 dollars from the company. According to the report, Kim Kardashian has accepted the fine but has not commented further. The amount of the fine is 1.26 million US dollars. She has also agreed not to promote crypto assets for three years and to cooperate with the ongoing investigations.
But why all the fuss?
EthereumMax was accused earlier this year of using prominent endorsements to increase the coin’s value before selling its shares at a profit. This act is thus a direct violation of federal security laws. The case has not yet been closed. The crypto world is an unregulated space; almost anyone can put together a project without a proper registration process for traditional securities. Due to the high media attention to the incident, this brings cryptocurrency to the forefront. There could now be further regulation in the cryptocurrency space. After the Ethereum Merge, the SEC announced that a blockchain could serve as security, meaning that the entire Ethereum blockchain would have to register with the SEC. Therefore, all other cryptocurrencies would also have to be labelled as securities.
Want to learn more about the Ethereum merge? Check out this article.