Kim Kardashian settles with SEC over crypto campaign

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN

Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing that she had been paid $250,000 to do so.

The SEC said Monday that the reality TV star and entrepreneur has agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

The SEC said Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, a crypto-asset security offered by EthereumMax.

Kardashian’s Instagram post contained a link to the EthereumMax website, which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens.

“The federal securities laws are clear that any celebrity or other person promoting a cryptoasset security must disclose the nature, source and amount of compensation they received in exchange for the promotion,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a prepared statement.

Kardashian has agreed not to market any crypto-asset securities for three years.

“Ms. Kardashian is pleased to have settled this matter with the SEC. Kardashian fully cooperated with the SEC from the very beginning, and she remains willing to do whatever she can to assist the SEC in this matter. She wanted to get this matter behind her to avoid a protracted dispute. The settlement she reached with the SEC allows her to do so so she can move forward with her many different business activities,” a lawyer for Kardashian said in an email.

While Kardashian is known for reality TV, currently appearing on “The Kardashians” on hulu, she is also a successful businesswoman. Her brands include SKIMS, which has shapewear, loungewear and other products, and a skincare line called SKKN.

Cryptocurrency has attracted increasing attention from Congress. A bipartisan proposal last month would hand over regulatory authority over Bitcoin and Ether, two popular cryptocurrencies, to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission after wild swings in crypto values, dozens of scams and hundreds of billions of dollars gained and lost.

Kardashian is not the first celebrity to attract the attention of regulators for their involvement in cryptocurrency. In 2018, the agency settled charges against professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer DJ Khaled for failing to disclose payments they received to promote digital currency investments.

This year, crypto investors have seen prices plummet and companies crater with fortunes and jobs disappear overnight, and some firms have been accused by federal regulators of running an illegal securities exchange.