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RIYADH: Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency internationally, traded lower on Tuesday, falling by 3.54 percent to $21,100.51 as of 8:30 a.m. Riyadh time.
Ethereum, the second most traded cryptocurrency, was priced at $1,424.45 falling by 6.54 percent, according to data from Coindesk.
Apecoin and NFT sales may expose Yuga Labs to a class-action lawsuit
Yuga Labs has been accused of inflating the price of its non-fungible tokens by using celebrity endorsers, Bitcoin.com reported.
Currently, no official class-action lawsuit has been filed against Yuga Labs, according to court records.
It is currently seeking investors who lost money on Yuga Labs tokens or NFTs between April 2022 and June 2022, according to Scott+Scott’s website.
According to the accusations, Yuga Labs uses apecoin, a cryptocurrency associated with the Otherside metaverse and Bored Ape Yacht Club.
A threat to the NFT community was discussed in Yuga Labs’ last tweet, but the company has not commented on the accusations originating from Scott+Scott’s website.
Yuga Labs tweeted on July 18, 2022: “Our security team has been tracking a persistent threat group that targets the NFT community.”
“We believe that they may soon be launching a coordinated attack targeting multiple communities via compromised social media accounts. Please be vigilant and stay safe,” the tweet added.
Through a class action lawsuit brought by Scott+Scott, Yuga Labs’ investors are seeking restitution for losses incurred from Yuga Labs tokens and NFT purchases, the law firm’s website said.
Crypto exchange Coinbase faces SEC probe over securities
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Coinbase improperly let Americans trade digital assets that should have been registered as securities, Bloomberg News reported.
A Coinbase spokesperson told Reuters the company does not list securities on its platform, while the regulator declined to comment on the report.
The company’s legal head Paul Grewal said Coinbase will engage with the SEC on the matter.
“We are confident that our rigorous diligence process — a process the SEC has already reviewed — keeps securities off our platform,” Grewal said.
The SEC’s scrutiny has increased ever since the crypto trading platform expanded the number of tokens in which it offers trading, according to Bloomberg.
The probe by the SEC’s enforcement unit predates its investigation into an alleged insider trading scheme that was revealed last week.
In the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency, US prosecutors had charged Ishan Wahi, a former product manager at Coinbase, for sharing confidential information about forthcoming announcements of new cryptocurrency assets that Coinbase would allow users to trade through its exchange.
In related civil charges, the regulator alleged that Wahi’s brother Nikhil Wahi and their friend Sameer Ramani purchased and sold at least 25 crypto assets for a profit, nine of which the agency identified as securities.
The SEC had declined to confirm at the time whether it would pursue action against Coinbase for listing the tokens deemed securities in the complaint.
The cryptocurrency platform has previously asked the regulator to develop rules that work for digital asset securities.