A class action lawsuit has been filed against Cristiano Ronaldo for promoting NFT tokens issued by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. The plaintiffs’ filing Monday said both the Portuguese soccer star and the cryptocurrency exchange made “false statements” to promote the “CR7” NFT collection, which launched in November 2022. They are seeking damages in excess of $1 billion.
The CR7 Binance collection featured images of Ronaldo in seven poses. The striker, who currently plays for Al-Nasr, promised to “change the world of NFTs and take football to the next level.” The cheapest CR7 NFT cost $77 when it was released ahead of last year’s World Cup, but is now worth just $1, according to BBC News. The plaintiffs claim that both Ronaldo and Binance knew that their promotion was “targeted at consumers unfamiliar with cryptocurrency” and should therefore be held liable for the losses of naive investors.
Ronaldo is not the first celebrity to be sued for promoting NFTs or cryptocurrencies. In December 2022, a class action lawsuit alleged that Justin Bieber, Serena Williams, Paris Hilton and several other famous figures were paid to misleadingly advertise Bored Ape Yacht Club’s digital art collection.
Numerous lawsuits did not arise out of nowhere, but are a direct consequence of the situation that has developed around NFTs. Just a couple of years ago, non-fungible tokens were sold for tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the excitement around the pictures was so great that a whole category of people appeared who made a huge fortune from this.
But when the hype died down, it turned out that few people were interested in the pictures. NFT sales are down 92% from their peak in 2021, Forbes reports. The number of collectors has also declined. In April 2022, from hundreds of thousands, only 14 thousand remained.
The worst situation is with the cost of individual tokens. Just a year ago they were bought for tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, but now many NFTs have lost 50-90% of their original value, and people who bought them during the rush are left without money.
This is the main reason for the lawsuits, but deceived investors can hardly count on anything: investments are a risk, and neither Binance nor Cristiano Ronaldo promised high returns.