FTX Shells Out Roughly $750K To Shaquille O'Neal Amid Multi-Million Dollar Celebrity Endorsements

The bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reportedly paid nearly $750,000 to former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal, along with other celebrities, as part of its marketing efforts, according to court document, Decrypt reported.

What Happened: Court documents related to the exchange’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings disclosed that FTX had made hefty payments to various celebrities, including O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, and David Ortiz.

FTX’s current management, in a submission to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, presented a list of celebrities, businesses and sports teams that had received payments as part of the exchange’s promotional campaign. While the list isn’t exhaustive, the management is striving to account for all outstanding payments made in previous years.

The disclosure showed that FTX paid close to $750,000 to O’Neal, nearly $308,000 to tennis champion Osaka, around $206,000 to Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and roughly $271,000 to ex-Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz.

Several of these celebrities, including O’Neal and Osaka, are already embroiled in lawsuits filed by FTX creditors over their promotion of the company that collapsed last November. They have been implicated in a class-action lawsuit filed in a Florida federal court in May, accusing them of unlawfully promoting unregistered securities.

FTX’s current management is exploring strategies to reclaim the funds paid to promoters to balance its significant debts. However, they admit that the final amount recovered may differ substantially from the amounts reported in the filing.

See Also: Bitcoin On The Cusp Of ‘Final Correction,’ Says Crypto Analyst

Why It Matters: O’Neal, known for his financial acumen, has been building wealth through diverse investments since his retirement in 2011. He has followed the golden rule of only investing in companies that can change people’s lives, leading him to invest in firms like Google, Ring, and Vitamin Water.

However, his involvement with FTX has not been his first brush with legal trouble over cryptocurrency promotions. Earlier, he faced a proposed class action in Florida federal court over the alleged illegal sale of unregistered tokens linked to Astrals NFT Project.

Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading at $26,267.75, up 1.42% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo by Ron Adar on Shutterstock

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