A Celebrity Made Me Do It

Yuga Labs, the blockchain technology company that develops non-fungible tokens and other ephemera including the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, is under threat of a class action lawsuit alleging that it artificially boosted the price of its crypto “assets,” leaving investors with deep losses. According to the law firm Scott+Scott, investors were “inappropriately induced” to buy the company’s NFTs and its native coin ApeCoin. The alleged inducement consisted of using celebrity promoters – Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady and Paris Hilton, among others – and their endorsements to “inflate” the price of its NFTs by overpromising high returns. Prices for crypto assets and NFTs have fallen along with the financial market, but somebody paid $3 million plus for a BAYC digital artwork in 2021.