Billionaire Elon Musk, alongside with his corporations SpaceX and Tesla Inc, are all being sued for an astonishing $258 billion in damages for being “engaged in a crypto pyramid scheme” involving Dogecoin (DOGE).
The damages sought are greater than 34 occasions Dogecoin’s present market cap of $7.5 billion and almost 3 times its all-time excessive (ATH) market cap of $88.68 billion in mid-2021.
Filed within the New York District Court by an legal professional at Evan Spencer Law on Thursday, the class-action lawsuit alleges that Musk “used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement.”
In the submitting, plaintiff Keith Johnson, a United States citizen, alleges that Musk and his firms had been “unjustly enriched” by $86 billion on account of wire fraud, playing enterprise, false promoting, misleading practices and different illegal conduct.
Johnson claims that he and others within the class-action have misplaced roughly $86 billion between May 2021 and June 2022, and is demanding that determine in financial damages alongside with one other $172 billion in damages and costs:
“Defendant Musk is the self-appointed ‘Dogefather,’ ‘former CEO of Dogecoin,’ partner, developer, spokesperson, publicist, salesman, marketer, and promoter of Dogecoin, who assembled the ‘Doge Army’ including his corporations and various billionaires, influencers, and celebrities to increase the price, market cap and trading volume of Dogecoin.”
In January, Musk introduced that his electrical automobile firm Telsa would settle for DOGE as fee for the corporate’s merchandise. In May, he introduced that Dogecoin funds would even be accepted by his area exploration firm SpaceX.
The lawsuit additionally calls for an order declaring the buying and selling of Dogecoin to be constituted as playing inside New York and federal legislation and in addition alleges that Musk and his corporations have violated state and federal playing legal guidelines.
“Since Plaintiff and the class were not advised that the trading of Dogecoin was nothing more than a gambling enterprise, Plaintiff and the class demand the return of all wagers lost trading Dogecoin.”
It additionally seeks to order Musk and his corporations and every other unlicensed professionals from promoting, advertising or selling Dogecoin sooner or later.
Community reacts
The crypto group has ridiculed the lawsuit.
Related: Dogecoin’s mother and father are preventing: Musk and Jackson Palmer change barbs
Pseudonymous Dogecoin creator Shibetoshi Nakamoto’s tweet was cited within the lawsuit as supporting proof, calling the lawsuit “stupid as fuck” on Twitter on Thursday whereas admitting that crypto buying and selling isn’t a lot totally different from playing.
i imply dogecoin is similar as all the pieces else, they wanna make all crypto into playing?
the lawsuit is clearly silly as fuck, however i don’t assume crypto buying and selling is far totally different than playing
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) June 16, 2022
Rahul Sood, CEO, and co-founder of Irreverent Labs, which builds blockchain video games known as it a “stupid class-action lawsuit”
“Amazing that in the US someone could launch such a stupid class-action lawsuit. These guys all knew what they were getting into. Ridiculous.”
Ron Coleman, a commercial litigator and partner at Dhillon Law Group with 196,000 Twitter followers, replied to a Tweet about the news, noting that “anyone can say anything in a lawsuit.”
Anyone can say something in a lawsuit
— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) June 16, 2022