Jake Paul, More Sued by Securities and Exchange Commission Over Crypto Promotions | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

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The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Grenada diplomat and crypto maven Justin Sun with fraud and unregistered securities, and also has charged YouTuber and boxer Jake Paul—among other celebrities—for promoting Sun’s Tronix and BitTorrent crypto assets, per MacKenzie Sigalos and Rohan Goswami of CNBC.

Actress Lindsay Lohan, musicians Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo and Akon and adult film star Kendra Lust were also charged alongside Paul.

Per that report, the celebrity promoters other than Soulja Boy and Mahone all “agreed to pay a collective $400,000 in disgorgement, interest and penalties to settle the charges. The settlements were not an admittance or denial of guilt.”

Sun allegedly manipulated the trading market by creating the illusion of active trading on Tronix and BitTorrent, having his celebrity backers promote the crypto assets on social media without acknowledging that they were being paid for the promotions.

The celebrity backers like Paul also reportedly recruited people to join “Tron-affiliated Telegram and Discord channels.”

“Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings, while specifically directing that they not disclose their compensation,” SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. “This is the very conduct that the federal securities laws were designed to protect against regardless of the labels Sun and others used.”

Paul, 26, has emerged as a prominent, if controversial, figure in the world of boxing, continuing to draw major attention for bouts against B-list celebrities, former MMA fighters and boxers.

He’s 6-1 in his professional boxing career, most recently losing to Tommy Fury. His boxing victories included wins over former MMA fighters Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley (twice) and Anderson Silva.