Finance YouTubers Sued for 1,000,000,000$ after FTX Collapse

Should influencers be liable for their promotions?

Christian Behler
3 min readMar 20, 2023
Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash

Eight prominent finance YouTubers including Graham Stephan, Meet Kevin, and Andrei Jikh are being sued for 1$ billion for promoting the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The finance influencers were sponsored by FTX and their positive endorsements convinced a lot of people to deposit money on FTX. This is the second lawsuit for FTX promotions after celebrities like Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, and Steph Curry were sued last year.

Most people follow Tom Brady because he is pretty good at throwing a football and not because of his investment advice. These YouTubers, however, have built massive followings for precisely that reason. They post about all types of finance topics like stocks, real estate, and cryptocurrencies. A lot of young people especially, trust their opinions. Now, millions of them have lost a lot of money because of their promotions.

We have to ask ourselves: Should celebrities and finance influencers be held responsible for their endorsements?

In Coffeezilla’s video about the lawsuit, Meet Kevin replied to the allegations and while he feels sorry for the victims he denies any responsibility. “The reality is, people have to put on their

--

--

Christian Behler

M. Sc. Computer Science and Physics, Indie Game/Software/Web Developer, Writer, 3D Artist, and too many other interests. https://pingpoli.medium.com/membership