How to shake it off

Over the weekend, disc jockey and legendary basketball player Shaquille O’Neal was served in a $5 billion class action lawsuit targeting celebrities who endorsed the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX. He had reportedly been dodging the legal notice over the past few months, “hiding and driving away” from process servers.

The 7’1” DJ Diesel joins 10 other celebrities – including NBA star Stephen Curry, football legend Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, and tennis legend Naomi Osaka – named in the lawsuit, which levels accusations of peddling a “Ponzi scheme” that affected “thousands, if not millions, of consumers nationwide.”

But according to Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers behind the class action suit, there was almost one more celebrity name added to the list: Taylor Swift.

• Speaking on an episode of The Scoop podcast published yesterday, Moskowitz revealed that in the middle of negotiating a three-year, $100 million deal to become a paid spokesperson of FTX, Swift asked one question no one else did: “Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?” The deal ended up falling apart afterward.
• Before securities like stocks and crypto shares can be offered for sale to public investors, they must be registered with the SEC. Last September, SEC chair Gary Gensler said he believes “the vast majority” of crypto tokens meet the definition of an unregistered security.