The Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] charged Lil Yachty, Soulja Boy, Ne-Yo, and Akon with illegally advertising cryptocurrency. They're accused of receiving money to solicit crypto asset securities Tronix and BitTorrent without revealing that they "paid to or shared the amount they were given." With the exception of Soulja Boy, they consented to pay more than $400,000 in "disgorgement, interest, and penalties" to reconcile the charges without acknowledging or negating the SEC's findings.
"While we're neutral about the technologies at issue, we're anything but neutral when it comes to investor protection," the director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement said in a statement. "As alleged in the complaint, entrepreneur Justin Sun and others used an age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors by first offering securities without complying with registration and disclosure requirements and then manipulating the market for those very securities. At the same time, Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings, while specifically directing that they not disclose their compensation."