- Shaquille O’Neal is still in hot waters for a class action lawsuit brought against him in 2023, as the court did not dismiss all claims against him.
- The court will look into his role in promoting unregistered securities.
A Florida court only partially dismissed a class action lawsuit against Shaquille O’Neal for his involvement in promoting the Solana-based Astrals NFT project. District Judge Federico Moreno rejected the claims of him being a ‘control person’ in the project. However, Moreno did not dismiss claims of him being a crucial promoter of the project.
The court filing read, “The alleged unregistered securities sold to Plaintiffs are the Astrals and Galaxy tokens created for the Astrals project. One of the main promotors of The Astrals Entities was former National Basketball Association player Shaquille O’Neal.”
O’Neal Promoted the Project Heavily and Exited After Claiming He Would Not
O’Neal’s involvement in Astrals could make him a ‘seller’ due to his actions in soliciting the purchase of the NFTs for financial gain. He constantly hyped the project up on social media platforms like X. Also, he posted GIFs, including one from The Wolf of Wall Street that depicted Leonardo DiCaprio saying “I’m not f*cking leaving,” on Discord amidst 2022’s FTX collapse. He even sent videos in which he spoke of the Astrals team continuing the project’s development until the NFT prices reached 30 SOL. Court documents stated that he left the project shortly after, following which the value of Astrals NFTs crashed tremendously.
The court is also interested in hearing the lawyers who brought the class action lawsuit argue about how the tokens sold by Astral were unregistered securities. The court filing mentioned, “Plaintiffs claim that O’Neal knew or should have known of potential concerns about regulatory issues concerning the sale of unregistered crypto securities, but nevertheless extensively promoted the Astrals Project to his large following on a multitude of social media platforms.”
Astrals was a metaverse-based NFT project that allowed users to purchase 3D NFTs that could be used as avatars on social media, onchain applications, and within Astral’s metaverse called the Astralverse. It also comprised a DAO, which the project claimed would raise funds to invest in promising projects. Beyond the NFTs, Astrals issued the Galaxy (GLXY) tokens, acting as the governance token utilized for decision-making in the DAO.
