YouTubers Get Sued For $1,000,000,000

The influencers Who promoted FTX are nowbeing sued for over a billion dollars inDamages and I want to talk about itwe're not only speaking to a lawyer buteven one of the people getting sued meetKevin Graham Stefan Andre dick minoritymindset Brian Jung Financial educationJeremy Tom Nash and bit boy crypto areall defendants in this lawsuit butbefore we get into it I have to dosomethingI never thought I would do on thischannelI have to defend a certain person onthat list a guy I have been verycritical of on this show I'm talkingabout bit boy cryptoI know I can't believe it either whatmany people don't know is that he turnedagainst them and get this months beforethe collapse he started warning peopleabout FTX we are going to be Crossingout ftt and Solana these are going to begoing out of the portfolios these coinsare dead to me same payment free Drewdead to me Brett Harrison you are deadto me FTX you are dead to me you aredespicable and I'm disgusted by you inevery way shape or form everybody'sgoing to be on that track oh my gosh hesaid that way back in September he saidhe's disgusted by sandbagment freed thisis Big Boy crypto guys he's the JimCramer of crypto and yet somehow he madeone of the greatest blind call outs ofall time and it's so remarkable that Iactually want to show you yet anotherclip of him doing this because I simplycouldn't believe it when I saw itthey're playing games with people'slives and that's not right time toexpose FTX and SPF what what they reallyare what can I say that video is a monthbefore FTX collapsed and to be clear Iam not claiming that big boy is someOracle I think it was luck butunderstand that he's one of the mostwidely ridiculed crypto influencerseveryone has dumped on this guy foryears for bad calls but here we arewatching him get FTX the biggest conmore correct than even the most belovedFinancial influencers so it just doesn'tmake sense for him to be in this lawsuitand besides you're not supposed to suebit boy crypto anyways he sues you whenyou make fun of him alright sorry I'mI'm trying to defend him here but um I'mnot used to this strange turn of eventswhere the villain has become the herobut either way with that out of the wayI want to talk about the rest of thislawsuit basically the rest of theseinfluencers are accused of promoting FTXand getting paid for it it also accusesthem of not conducting adequate if anydo religions allegedly these influencersplayed a major role in the FTX disasterwho hyped the deceptive FTX platform forundisclosed payments now look none ofthis is really surprising we talkedabout this back in November and it allfeels inevitable the whole reason FTXwas so popular is because of the amountof money they dumped into theseadvertising campaigns everyone I knowwas offered one of these deals eitherway it's pretty logical to see thatwithout people willing to take the moneyand sell FTX it just couldn't have hurtas many people and already we saw asimilar class action lawsuit come outagainst arguably the biggest promotersTom Brady Larry David Kevin O'Leary andso this just seems like the next logicalstep targeted at smaller promotersalbeit Financial education influencersin particular so although these guysdon't have as anything close to TomBrady's popularity the argument here isdifferent it's that people look topeople like Graham Stefan and meet Kevinin a different way than they looked atTom Brady if Tom Brady promotes somepenny stock you'll think nothing of itbut meet Kevin Graham Stefan Andre chickFinancial Jeremy all they do is doFinance all day long they even have apodcast they called Millennial moneywhich was sponsored by you guessed itftxus and is now deleted and the pointis they position themselves as expertsand I think that's the real juice ofthis lawsuit in contrast to say like theTom Brady lawsuit the only analogy I canthink of is like if someone tried tosell you a pill that was going to helpyou lose weight and the two peoplepromoting it is Jack Black and Dr Ozokay let's say you take the pill anddevelop uncontrollable vomiting whowould you actually be mad at you knowyou could say Well Jack Black's more ofa star But ultimately obviously theanswer would be Dr Oz because he'sexpected to know better and to do duediligence and the reasonable assumptionis that Jack Black couldn't look into iteven if he tried because he's not anexpert and so I think that componentprobably will make a massive differenceI'm certainly not saying everyone whopromoted FTX who didn't know anythingabout Finance should be let off the hookI think it's a huge problem either waythat non-experts can chill Financialproducts I'm just saying it's worse ifthey are experts but to make my positioneven more explicit I don't thinkinfluencers of any kind should beallowed to promote these investmentproducts I think there's a huge downsideto it and very little upside I think youoftentimes end up hurting people becauseit's impossible to give broad Financialadvice in a responsible manner to amassive audience you don't know but onthat note you might say well hang on aminute Stephen I'm with you on notselling Financial products but uh theyweren't selling that they were sellingFTX right or FTX us and this is wherethings get a little tricky because yesthere's some truth to the fact that FTXus was a platform but on that platformthey were also selling Financialproducts you see you could buy what wascalled a yield bearing account or youcould put your money in it it's wherethey offered you eight percent a yearand this wasn't just FTX this was FTX usand that's a problem because well thistype of account is probably anunregistered security to avoid goinginto too many details let's just sayseveral different accounts like thishave been targeted by the SEC as beingunregistered Securities and the FTX earnaccounts would be no different so thisis where the lawsuit gets its claim thatthese influencers may not have just beenpromoting a scam they may have beenpromoting an unregistered security Nowto be fair to these influencers theseearn accounts were in a strange grayarea according to the website the FTXapp earn is available only in permittedjurisdictions which would appear to meanthat the United States of America wasnot allowed to have these accounts butin typical Sam bankman freed fashionwhat they said on their website wasn'tactually true you see these accountswere actually available to us investorsas seen on a screenshot from their ownapp quote FTX earn rewards are availablefor us users on a promotional basis andadmittingly this was confusing to a lotof people a redditor said FTX earned forU.S customers is incredible but verypoorly marketed and then complains thatit almost feels intentionally hiddenwhich should have been a red flag uh andmaybe it was but it was there and likeit or not if American investors putmoney into this earn account we couldearn eight percent a year because of oneof these influencers they may have soldan unregistered security which would bebad not just for the person who puttheir money there but also bad for theinfluencer I mean look it's it's all badit's just legal Jiu Jitsu to kind of getto the obvious ultimately this story isabout people getting hurt promotersgetting paid and now they're gettingsued for it to which I say good althoughnot everyone believes this particularlegal strategy is going to hold water Iasked legal eagle a well-known lawyer onYouTube what he thought and he wasdoubtful about its chances and basicallythe entire case rests on a part of theFlorida law that the plaintiff's claimconnects the endorsers to FTX I'm veryskeptical of this the section inquestion extends liability to anydirector officer partner or agent forthe seller if they personallyparticipated or aided in the making of asale and if you're on YouTube or ifyou're a celebrity endorser you're not adirector of the company you're not anofficer you're not a partner and you'renot an agent you're not able to act onbehalf of the company you're justbasically contracted to make a statementfor most of them it relies on a bearallegation that they were quote paid toendorse FTX and then there is asubsequent allegation whereso wishy-washy it says quote it is hardto imagine that anyone who has donebusiness with FTX including paidendorsers would not have personallywitnessed one or more of thedeficiencies identified by Mr Ray he'sthe guy who's in charge of thereceivership of FTX and bankruptcy andall FTX endorsers have extensivebusiness dealings Beyond FTX and surelywould be able to identify businesspractices that are unusually problematicnow as a legal matter I don't think thatthat really changes anything as afactual matter it's just completelyfalse that a celebrity endorser or aYouTuber would have any insight into theinner workings of FTX that the publicdoes not have that's just not the way itworks though at the same time I wouldn'twant to be these YouTubers either whoare going to have to pay thousands andthousands of dollars to their lawyers todefend against what is quite possibly ameritless lawsuit I don't expect thisparticular lawsuit to go anywhere but Ithink it is going to be a pain in thesides of many of these YouTubers wow sothere's the official opinion from anexpert it'll probably cost theinfluencers a lot of money but he'sskeptical if it will hold up for thelong run of course we'll see how itplays out but the last thing I wanted todo was not just ask a lawyer what theythought but ask these influencersbecause look whether you think thisparticular lawsuit is relevant itchanges nothing about the ethics of thissituation and I wanted to hear itstraight from them and most of themrefused to comment for understandablereasons but meet Kevin decided torespond and here's what he said you'rebeing sued along with several others forthe promotion of FTX do you think youshould be liable what are your thoughtsit's terrible I thinkI've lost money fromepisodeFinance communityegg on the face so to speak becausebecause of the association with somebodywho ended up beingin fraud and it's miserable the way Icompare it is I was a real estate brokerfor quite a while still am a real estatebroker and I'll oftentimes clients askus for vendor recommendations hey littleelectrician who's a good plumber and Ihad this before where 9I'm the electrician you recommend isgreat and at one time something goeswrong because that stuff happens itturns into the situation where theperson who's responsible is a personmaking the mistake uh and I know it'sterrible because it's like hey wellFinancial influencers so what how comethey didn't know we didn't have accessto financials at FTX we had hired uhindividual Representativessort of stuff and they tell us they doall the vettings for us you know this iswhy we hire people to help us and so wedon't have a look into the systems ofwhat's really going on behind the sceneswhoever else has been caught up in thisbut I think that the worst case uhscenarioof all the individual don't have accessto their deposits but do you think youshould specifically you or me uh Grahamor anybody else like who promoted it Ithink the difference is between you andTom Brady is people kind of expect youguys to know do you think you should bea do you think you should be givingrecommendations if you can't do theproper due diligence because as you saidyou don't have access to thesefinancials and then B do you think thatgiven that you guys profited I'mguessing somewhere in the realm of amillion dollars plus from these FTXthings uh do you think that you shouldgive back all of that moneyprobably somewheresomewhere 25k is supposed to be closerto 300 but they never paid me the lastthe last so I'm probably somewhere rightaround 220 I need to fact checked up butwe're close to somewhere around that uhand uhultimately I agree with you I think thatthat there needs to be a better thereneeds to be a lot more diligence in whensponsorships are made uh with Chris yeahbecause you guys are dealing withfinances this isn't like this isn't aNord VPN ad where if things go wrong youknow something happens this is like ifsomething goes wrong people's entirelivelihoods are at stake and For Betteror For Worse you guys are seen as uh theexperts and so you guys are held to thatexpert standard it's like if a doctorrecommended a pill that doesn't work andgives you some you know gives you canceror something suppose it's also relevantto what people individually say rightbecause individually I've always saidlook crypto is extremely speculative andthat it should represent a tiny portionof your folio if anything at all on topof that it's also incumbent upon theindividual to take some responsibilitythat we know not your keys not yourcrypto that's been made abundantly cleareven with these bank failures I believethat ultimately depositors deserve someform of a haircut because ultimatelythey choose now if I say hey go to youknow Silicon Valley bank and get a loanand you're like I get alone here I getall these benefits ultimately you takethat risk so it is incumbent upon theindividual to take responsibility aswell yes a doctor can refer you heymaybe thisbut the individuals aren't the expertsthat's the whole problem is they rely onExperts to help them make this decisionthey don't have the luxury of spendingall day looking at finance and stufflike this so they rely on people to maketheir decisions for better or worse andthen when things go wrong uh you knowultimately people are gonna look to theexperts in the room and say hey whathappened and if the answer is well wejust didn't do enough due diligencesorry that's that's kind of a problem soI think that's that's where theirquestions about like giving back all themoney come fromum have have you spoken to anybody aboutjust giving back the money uh to the tothe people affected and once this onceall the cards are settled or all thedust is settled so to speak andeverybody gets whatever money is leftback uh whatever deposits are left I I'ma big fan of contributing to some sortof Recovery Fund when it's all over notbecause I feel responsible I do not feelresponsible but because I feel soEvergreen for people who quite franklylost money because they either didn'tlisten to the advice of not your keysnot your crypto or they put too much oftheir own portfolio on you know if I goonto a gambling website because somebodysays hey go gamble here you'll make alot of money and I lose money that's onme and I want to be clear too I investedin Block fight thinking this was goingto be a great investment I put 420 000into block fight I lost every dime ofthat because the company went bankruptnow did I blame Anthony pompliano formaking the recommendation or suggestinghey you could invest with my fund intouh blog fight absolutely not because I'ma big boy and I take personalresponsibility so I want to be veryclear just because I I suggest that heyyou know there should be and I'm happyto work with it some form of likebasically a charity let's be clearthat's what it is it's not takingresponsibility because ultimately Idon't think anyone any influencer has totake responsibility for what somebodydoes with product advice that shouldonlythat responsibility should only arisesomebody actually hires somebody likeretaining an attorney hiring a doctorfor their own personal situation orhiring a personal financial advisorotherwise from there it's a lesson tothe whole Community we've got to be morecareful with sponsors and the viewershave to be you know diligent about theown their own decisions well there yougo guys those are the thoughts of meetKevin and I want to thank him for comingon and maybe one day he'll start thatcharity he's talking about maybe not butuntil thenI just want you to understand somethingthe next time you're thinking oftrusting a financial influencerthese promotional deals how they workwith things like FTX is that there's aCode associated with it that trackssales for example you might have heardof somebody saying hey use codecoffeezilla or you know they have somelink right so FTX can see how manypeople signed up with Kevin's link orshax link and you know who takesresponsibility when it's time to makemoney the influencer they takeresponsibility for you joining theirplatform that's how FTX group they paidall these people who wanted to beresponsible for bringing you in but youknow what happens when things go wrongsuddenly they're not responsible you didit it's on you isn't that a convenientswitch up of who brought you in at firstit was them and then you broughtyourself in you got to takeresponsibility for your own actions andI just don't think this is reallyworking for people anymore I think itreally just benefits the influencers andthe financial companies but hardlyanyone else it's bad for regular peopleand I think there just really needs tobe new rules in place about financialexperts in the modern era but hey that'sjust my opinion hashtag not Financialadvice