Shaq’s Pivotal Role in Solana NFT Venture Uncovered in Court

Shaqtoshi bumps into big trouble as the lawyers keep on digging into the legendary player’s crypto ventures.

Shaquille O'neal looking upset whilst emerging from an Astrals Logo with NFT creatures behind him.
Created by Gabor Kovacs from DailyCoin
  • The plaintiffs penned a 111-page amended complaint against Shaq.
  • Astrals NFT floor price dropped below 1 SOL despite the 17.85 ATH.
  • Solana flopped by 21.1% in a month amid tightening US regulations.

Shaquille O’Neal faces more legal challenges this week as the plaintiffs, represented by the Moskowitz law firm, filed a 111-page long complaint against the iconic basketball player & TV show host.

A new lengthy complaint in the ongoing Shaq legal saga comes a month after district judge Federico Moreno selected the lead plaintiffs. Shaquille O’Neal allegedly had a significant role in the Astrals NFT rugpull, which happened on the Solana (SOL) PoS network.

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The court filing argues that Shaq had left the Astrals NFT project right after FTX collapsed. At the time, the world’s then-second-largest cryptocurrency exchange had numerous deals with athletes and celebrities to endorse FTX’s products. 

The vaguely regulated endorsements online have already caused trouble for fellow basketball stars Steph Curry and his teammates, as well as the entire Miami Heat and Washington Wizards franchises.

Class-Action Lawsuit Keeps Haunting Big Shaq

Interestingly, the original class-action document filed in May consists of 55 pages – twice as few as the new amended complaint. Both the original and the amended version are digging into the crypto background history of Shaquille O’Neal.

The court documents recorded a 1,164% spike in Astrals NFT sales volume over 24 hours after Shaq changed his Twitter profile picture to a Creature World NFT stored on Ethereum’s blockchain. 

Shaq switched from Ethereum to Solana in February 2022 and launched Astrals NFT on SOL a month later. The iconic center forward founded the Astrals NFT project in March 2022 and even led the community on Discord.

Even though the project skyrocketed to 17.85 Solana (SOL) during its peak, Astrals NFT lost over 99% of its market value after FTX’s liquidity crunch kicked in, swiping many crypto projects. Since then, Big Shaqtus has stopped endorsing Astrals and took out the .SOL ending in his nickname.

The legal process servers caught Osama Bin Shaq in Game 4 of last year’s NBA Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics. Unfortunately, the Moskowitz lawyers were asked to leave the venue right after handing Shaqtoshi the affidavits for two class-action lawsuits seeking over $1 billion in damages.

https://twitter.com/MorningBrew/status/1648007915356438528

On the Flipside

  • Despite rugpull claims, Astrals NFT project is still active and gained 8% in floor price following the news.
  • Crypto traders on Twitter argue that the crisis of blockchain gaming since last year had more to do with the NFT project’s price fall.

Why This Matters

Moskowitz’s law firm claims Judge Moreno selected their clients in multiple crypto-related class-action lawsuits to run the show. The outcome of this class-action lawsuit could be a game-changer for crypto regulation across the globe.

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This article is for information purposes only and should not be considered trading or investment advice. Nothing herein shall be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. Trading forex, cryptocurrencies, and CFDs pose a considerable risk of loss.

Author
Tadas Klimasevskis

Tadas Klimaševskis is a DailyCoin Journalist, covering memecoins & latest developments. Tadas has moderate holdings in SHIB, HBAR, LTC, MATIC and a selection of low-cap meme currencies.

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