Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce will have to pay over a million dollars in penalties after the Hall-of-Famer was illegally paid to promote a cryptocurrency brand that he also made false claims about.
Two years ago, Pierce was cut from his ESPN NBA analyst role after he became embroiled in a scandal related to crypto company EthereumMax and their Emax tokens. The 10-time All-Star promoted the tokens on his social media accounts and represented himself purely as a customer and not a spokesperson for the company. Well, that was a lie.
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On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Pierce would pay a penalty totaling $1.4 million after an investigation found he was paid $244,000 worth of EMAX tokens to push the currency on Twitter. Not disclosing a paid relationship with a cryptocurrency and then promoting their products is illegal. The investigation also revealed other infractions by the Boston Celtics great.
“Pierce tweeted misleading statements related to EMAX, including tweeting a screenshot of an account showing large holdings and profits without disclosing that his own personal holdings were, in fact, much lower than those in the screenshot. In addition, one of Pierce’s tweets contained a link to the EthereumMax website, which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens.”
– SEC report on Paul Pierce
Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce one of many celebrities with negative links to crypto
Paul Pierce’s troubles are one of many instances where celebrities recently peddled cryptocurrency to build up value for the formats they had personal ties to, only to see their questionable dealings blow up in their face.
Along with Pierce, influencer Kim Kardashian was also hit with a $1.2 million penalty from the SEC for pushing EMax tokens illegally. Furthermore, in 2022 Tom Brady reportedly lost over $40 million after helping to promote crypto company FTX to massive stock prices, only for it to go belly up after filing for bankruptcy.