The plaintiffs believe that disclosing the risks of investing in the asset would have saved them from substantial financial loss

Caitlyn Jenner has been accused of violating securities laws when selling the JENNER meme token

14.11.2024 - 13:20

93

4 min

What’s new? JENNER meme token investors from the UK and Romania have filed a class action lawsuit in a California court against TV star Caitlyn Jenner for selling the asset as an unregistered security. The plaintiffs claim they lost over $56 000 on their investment in the token, which circulates on the Ethereum and Solana networks. According to them, Jenner’s false and misleading statements about the asset were to blame.

Material by Cointelegraph

What else is known? In addition to Jenner, her manager Sophia Hutchins is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Both allegedly “fraudulently solicited financially unsophisticated investors throughout the United States and abroad to purchase unregistered securities.”

According to the lawsuit, the defendants willfully failed to register JENNER with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, no information was disseminated regarding the asset to assess investment risk, causing significant harm to purchasers.

JENNER was initially launched in May 2024 through the largest PumpFun meme token launchpad on the Solana network by Indian entrepreneur Sahil Arora, who has partnered with other stars. However, by the end of the month, Jenner had already accused him of fraud, after which JENNER was relaunched on Ethereum.

Bubblemaps analysts accuse creator of celebrity meme tokens of fraud

Bubblemaps analysts accuse creator of celebrity meme tokens of fraud

Entrepreneur Sahil Arora used celebrities to promote projects and then dumped the tokens, causing losses to real investors

Read more

JENNER reached a peak value of $0,008 on July 3 after the relaunch but then began a steady decline in July. By now, the asset has dropped 98% from its peak and has fallen to almost zero. Its capitalization is $107 670 and its daily trading volume has barely exceeded $5500.

The plaintiffs believe that Jenner abandoned the project, leaving investors with substantial losses, which are unlikely to be recovered through the growth of the JENNER rate.

Jenner initially set price and capitalization targets for JENNER while still launching on Solana, but the asset collapsed as Sahil Arora implemented a Pump&Dump scheme.

As the person responsible for creating the token, Arora owned almost the entire token supply, which he dumped after the rate rose amid social media hype.

The plaintiffs argue that Jenner had a duty to warn potential investors about this risk — the volume of coins owned by her and insiders — but she willfully failed to do so for her own financial gain.

Arora himself is not listed as a defendant in this lawsuit against investors Naeem Azad and Mihai Caluzeru, citizens of the United Kingdom and Romania, respectively.

US Department of Justice has charged Gotbit’s top managers with fraud and market manipulation

US Department of Justice has charged Gotbit’s top managers with fraud and market manipulation

The company conducted fictitious trading for six years to inflate the trading volume of tokens of several companies, receiving payment for these services

Read more

They claim that the relaunch of the asset on the Ethereum blockchain caused the value of the original coin to fall even further on Solana. In addition, Jenner imposed a 3% fee on each transaction without properly communicating this publicly. According to investors, such a move “enriched Jenner tremendously.”

These funds were supposed to be used to pay for JENNER’s listing on major exchanges, as well as to provide for the repurchase of the asset. In reality, neither of these steps were taken, contributing to further investor losses and also violating the securities laws.

Subscribe to Getblock Magazine and stay up to date with the latest news from the world of cryptocurrencies and the digital economy