Justin Sun Denies Paying Celebrities to Promote Tron
A “Tron partner” is reportedly offering celebrities to participate in the paid promotion of Tron without disclosing it. Tron founder Justin Sun says he’s not involved.
Marques Brownlee, a popular YouTuber with over 13.5 million subscribers, revealed today that he was offered a “compensation” to promote the Tron cryptocurrency without disclosure—and that several other celebrities have taken this deal already.
“So I get this email. So this one said they just wanted a tweet and that they already have participation from Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Cerny, NeYo, Lil Yachty, and more," Brownlee said in his video today.
In a follow-up email, he was told that this campaign is for the Tron cryptocurrency that "they're, I guess, paying people to tweet about," he noted.
"But the more I read into this email, the more sketchy it is. They mention they're often referred to as the 'Ethereum killer'—whatever you say—and that they need to make it look like it's not a sponsored tweet," said Brownlee.
Above all else, it is illegal to promote something without disclosing that you are actually being paid to do so, per the Federal Trade Commission’s regulations.
The email Brownlee received from a "Tron partner." Image: Marques Brownlee
According to a screenshot of the email, the sender claimed to be a “partner” of Tron and said that several celebrities have already participated, linking three "top performing (sic) tweets from yesterday in our campaign" from Lindsay Lohan, NeYo, and Lil Yachty.
"We need not make it look like a 'sponsored tweet' — Marques can openly make a remark on what he think (sic) of Tron in a tweet and post it," said the email, adding, "Happy to compensate his honest opinion - nothing dictated or scripted."
Tron denies the accusations
Shortly after Brownlee’s video began making the rounds, Sun took to Twitter to deny paying celebrities for undisclosed advertisement.
“There have been rumors lately of third party celebrities being paid to promote TRON. TRON Foundation is not involved in these activities. Nor is the foundation aware of the actors behind this,” Sun wrote.
There have been rumors lately of third party celebrities being paid to promote #TRON. #TRON Foundation is not involved in these activities. Nor is the foundation aware of the actors behind this.
FalconX has held early-stage talks to issue an initial public offering and could file to go public as soon as this year, three sources close to the matter told Decrypt—a move that would boost the firm's bid to meet growing institutional demand for digital assets.
The cryptocurrency prime brokerage firm has held informal discussions with bankers and consultants to explore the IPO process, those sources said. FalconX is considering tapping public markets as it ramps up its pursuit of strategic pa...
JD.com plans to apply for stablecoin licenses in multiple countries as part of a comprehensive effort to reduce the cost and time of cross-border payments, Richard Liu, founder and chairman, announced on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Liu said the Chinese e-commerce giant aims to launch stablecoin services globally, starting with business-to-business payments and eventually expanding to consumer use.
"We aim to apply for our stablecoin license in all major sovereign currency...
Nasdaq-listed healthcare technology firm Semler Scientific was valued at a razor-thin premium compared to its Bitcoin holdings on Tuesday, according to the company’s website.
The firm’s mNAV, or multiple-to-net asset value, was recently 1.07. That means the company’s $498.5 million enterprise value—accounting for Semler’s market cap, debt, and cash balance—was slightly above that of its 4,449 Bitcoin worth $466 million.
Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, told Decrypt that...