Tom Brady, Larry David and other celebrities named in FTX lawsuit

[Kennah]

Source: NBC

A class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that the crypto platform FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried violated Florida law, misled customers and cost investors billions of dollars in damages.

The lawsuit also names some of the athletes and celebrities that promoted the platform, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, his ex-wife; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry; and businessman Kevin O’Leary.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. customers sustained $11 billion in damages and accused the exchange of targeting “unsophisticated investors from across the country.”

FTX and Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to requests for comment. NBC News has reached out to all parties named in the lawsuit.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/ftx-crypto-investors-sue-founder-sam-bankman-fried-celebrity-promoters-rcna57453

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Interesting. Not sure how I feel about this.

[nycbos]

1. Glad I never bought any crypto

Always seemed a little shady to me.

[Botany]

2. Sorry but if you bought into crypto you were scammed

Do you think Brady, Curry, O'Leary, and Gisele Bündchen were paid in crypto?
And if they were how quickly did they exchange itfor dollars.

[LittleGirl]

3. I wonder how much 45 lost? nt

[kimbutgar]

4. I worked for a family business where the sons were heavy involved in Crypto

Dad was an old fashioned stock investor. But his sons were enticed with crypto. I read up on what it was and thought it was kind of scammy. That was 6 years ago. I tried to understand it as I had been in the financial industry since I graduated from college. I wonder if the sons got hit in this breakdown of crypto. I am not the smartest person but the Crypto didn’t make sense to me and i tried to understand it and couldn’t see it as a safe investment.

[Yavin4]

6. Crypto only makes sense when you need money to pay for crimes

Other than that, I never saw its value.

[William Seger]

29. Even then, it doesn't make much sense to accept a "currency"

... that can have its value decimated overnight by a tweet, before you can convert it to useful dollars.

[Yavin4]

30. Well, when you need to hire a hit man for a job...

you can't use your credit card.

[Kid Berwyn]

27. Like ENRON level complexity.

Reminded me of M&M Enterprises in Catch-22:

"But Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents."

... later ...

"Milo chortled proudly. "I don't buy eggs from Malta," he confessed... "I buy them in Sicily at one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up to seven cents when people come to Malta looking for them."

"Then you do make a profit for yourself," Yossarian declared.

"Of course I do. But it all goes to the syndicate. And everybody has a share. Don't you understand? It's exactly what happens with those plum tomatoes I sell to Colonel Cathcart."

"Buy," Yossarian corrected him. "You don't sell plum tomatoes to Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. You buy plum tomatoes from them."

"No, sell," Milo corrected Yossarian. "I distribute my plum tomatoes in markets all over Pianosa under an assumed name so that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn can buy them up from me under their assumed names at four cents apiece and sell them back to me the next day at five cents apiece. They make a profit of one cent apiece, I make a profit of three and a half cents apiece, and everybody comes out ahead."

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9314005

[republianmushroom]

5. "unsophisticated investors ...............". I would say more like stupid people. IMO

[MichMan]

11. Lot of difference between and investment not working out vs a ponzi scheme

[Midwestern Democrat]

7. It's an interesting question - do celebrities getting paid to make endorsements have a duty to do

reasonable due diligence that this is a company/product they should be endorsing? I tend to think for endorsements involving enticing people to make major financial decisions - a celebrity should really think it over very carefully before agreeing to do it.

[Irish_Dem]

10. Maybe it depends upon if they knew it was a scam or not.

Brady can claim ignorance of the scam and point out he lost about $65 million.
So he is one of the victims not one of the criminals.

But right, they need to re-think their endorsments.

[Kennah]

23. Suppose Putin started hiring celebs to entice them to invest in Gazprom and vacation in Russia?

Yes, it's a weird reach. However, I remember Charles Barkley, years ago, saying in an interview about endorsements that he would endorse the Klan if they paid him.

[rpannier]

33. Agreed

Maybe then Joe Namath, Fred Thompson, Pat Boone, Tom Selleck, Henry Winkler and the rest wouldn't be pushing reverse mortgages
Then again, most of the celebrities they get are pretty shady

[rockfordfile]

8. Stay away from crypto

NBA needs to get rid of it. Remove the ads.

[Irish_Dem]

9. Brady and his ex wife are said to have lost at least $65 million.

Ouch

[Kennah]

22. That will barely inflate his balls

[Irish_Dem]

24. Right his net worth is around $250 million.

Well that was before his divorce.

So if had to split that in half and then take the FTX loss.
Not a great year for him money wise.

[wishstar]

31. Doubt he lost anything in divorce because she's richer than him and both had prenups

Reportedly they both kept their separate fortunes intact (other than the FTX losses) with hers being even more than his.

[Irish_Dem]

32. Oh I didn't know that piece. Interesting.

I read he lost more than she did at FTX.
He lost $45 million, she lost $20 million.
Something like that.

I know they don't have to worry about their next meal or anything.
But still who wants to lose that kind of money from a scam.

[moniss]

12. I have a

prett-ay, prett-ay, prett-ay good idea that this will become a fabulous bit of satire in some future episodes.

[PSPS]

13. I have no sympathy for anyone involved in promoting a pyramid scheme scam like this.

I'm sure Sam Bankman-Fried made out quite handsomely, hiding his skim. I mean, come on! No rational person would put any faith in an "investment" whose rules clearly state that trading/withdrawals by participants can be shut off by the "owner" at any time, but the same "owner" is allowed to continue "trading" (i.e., steal everything for themselves.) The last I heard, there's at least a billion that "can't be accounted for." LOL.

People have been falling for get-rich-quick schemes forever.

[Kennah]

21. May I interest you in tulips?

[PSPS]

26. Apparently, they were buying mansions, etc., for themselves with the money fools had "invested."

[mathematic]

14. Larry David told you not to buy!

Should have listed to larry

[Bengus81]

15. Those crypto miner idiots drove the price of memory and video cards through the roof

I had just built myself a new computer in Sept 2016 and a couple of others before the year ended. The next year the price of the memory I'd bought (G.Skill--32GB) was double or triple what I'd paid. Same with high end Nvidia chipset video cards.

Now they have overpriced computers and nothing to show for any CrapTOE.

[Initech]

16. Yeah the GPU prices are absolutely insane.

I paid close to $1K for a 3080 for one of my PCs last year and this year for my other PC I'm looking at paying minimum $500 for a 3070, though at this point I'll probably wait for the 7700X / 7800X to start arriving.

[Bengus81]

20. Nvidia is running the show,they have about zero competition

But 99% of people don't need a high end card unless they game with AAA titles or do high end video editing. I'm still plugging along with my EVGA GeForce GTX 960 card which works fine. I think it came out around 2015.

[Initech]

28. From what I am hearing, the AMD 7000s are actually beating Nvidia in every test.

Plus they don't have proprietary connectors that melt down either.

[Mortos]

17. Larry David's Lawyer only needs to play this short clip

Your honor, ladies and gentlement of the jury. Please watch this.

?t=130

I rest my case.

[Carlitos Brigante]

18. "Pretty, pretty, pretty....bad!" nt

[hibbing]

25. Beat me to it n/t

[LudwigPastorius]

19. "The lawsuit also names some of the athletes and celebrities that promoted the platform"

So, someone hired to endorse a company is supposed to know if the CEO is going to steal a bunch of customer's money or not?

I'm totally down for lawsuits against the FTX and those who managed it, but going after the people who got paid to make a commercial for it isn't right.