Below is a breakdown of this 95-page doc.

DEFENDANDS

The lawsuit names among others:

• Guy Oseary (Hollywood talent manager)

• Beeple

• Paris Hilton

• Snoop Dogg

• Kevin Hart

• Justin Bieber

• Jimmy Fallon

• Post Malone

• DJ Khaled

A full list of the defendants below:

ALLEGATIONS

The lawsuit consists of allegations regarding i.a.:

• selling and promoting unregistered securities

• unlawful, unfair, and deceptive practices

• undisclosed promotions

• staged transactions

• misleading celebrity endorsements

DETAILED ALLEGATIONS

The class action was filed by two investors who purchased among others the MAYC NFT and Apecoin and claim to suffer damages as a result of unlawful, unfair, and deceptive practices of Yuga Labs and the involved celebrities.

Allegedly the Yuga Labs founders and Oseary used their connections to Monday and its service as a covert way to compensate the celebrities for their promotions of the BAYC NFTs without disclosing it to retail investors.

According to the document the promotion & celebrity endorsement was based on a scheme that let BAYC-related entities sponsor the purchases of BAYC NFTs for celebrities who then acted as if they were organically interested in the ecosystem and paying with their own money.

That included for instance Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, and Madonna.

The lawsuit highlights that such practices were intended to create a false impression that celebrities were genuinely and organically interested in the ecosystem.

DECEPTIVE PRACTISES

On top of that, BAYC-related entities allegedly paid celebrities in eth for their promotional activities and endorsement, which was not disclosed in the promotional materials. For instance, Post Malone got $1,4M in four batches of 75, 100, 50 & 100ETH from Moonpay Wallet

The lawsuit describes the staged transactions of the NFT purchases by Kahled or Bieber & financial involvement in Moonpay of Paris Hilton or Paltrow It explains the pattern of how Oseary, a talent manager, conducted acquisitions of A-class celebs to promote the BAYC ecosystem

Interestingly, the lawsuit also refers to the FTX involvement through the person of Amy Wu who led the FTX web3 gaming fund and became a member of the Apecoin DAO board, and Stephen Curry who starred in the FTX ad with BAYC sculpture.

The lawsuit has its funny parts too. It quotes Jimmy Fallon's Twitter posts and accuses him that he made a false impression that he was going to be a leader or “captain” in the future BAYC community.

At this part, I laughed, ngl

According to the lawsuit, all of these activities were made to deceive the investing public & artificially inflate and maintain the market price of Yuga's digital assets.

APE COIN

Concerning ApeCoin, the lawsuit consists of allegations that the defendants sought to obscure the sales of their own massive ApeCoin allocations directly to retail purchasers.

CONCLUSIONS

Throughout the whole lawsuit, the plaintiffs emphasize that yuga labs' digital assets were in fact securities that were not registered.

This aspect of the lawsuit is very interesting.

It may have an impact on the whole NFT industry in the US.

If there is a trial and the case, in fact, ends up in court, maybe there is a chance that we will have a landmark case here for #NFTcommunity.

Let’s Connect

I am Jack.

I am an ex-lawyer and the founder of a web3 project.

I spent thousands of hours analyzing web3 projects, in particular in the NFT space and building my own venture.

It’s my first article published here.

With over 80 articles already written on web3, blockchain, NFTs, and more, I'm excited to share my expertise with you every week.

Every Tuesday, I publish an article focusing on web3 strategies to help you thrive in this ecosystem.

Additionally, every Thursday I share my personal opinions on important web3 issues.

I would be thrilled if you subscribed to stay updated.

Feel free to reach out to me via DM!