It's official. YouTube Content Creators have started getting slapped with a class action lawsuit for being associated with promoting FTX Now this is terrible. Anybody who's lost money in FTX I Feel so terrible for? But we've got to have a discussion because there's a lot that we can learn from this situation. and I think there are a lot of implications that come out of all of this.

I Think the first and most important thing to say is the most obvious criminal here is Sandbankment Freedom. Sandbankment Freed and his associates are frauds and criminals they embezzled according to Bloomberg in a story this morning up to a staggering 2.2 billion dollar Fortune by embezzling customer deposits and trying to gamble with that money only to lose a lot of it. Now hopefully a lot of money will eventually be seized and salvaged by regulators, and hopefully depositors are made whole at least to some point. We don't know what percentage that's going to be and a lot of those cards will have to fall before any other blame or liability can be be shared.

We don't know how much of people's deposits are going to eventually be returned to people, right? Hopefully it's a lot, but we'll have to wait and see what will probably take years to get to the bottom of that. Now when it comes to sandbankment Freed It's worth noting that because he's such a fraud and criminal he's facing according to CBS up to 155 years in jail, 30 years for bank fraud, 20 years for each account of wire and securities fraud, 10 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering and more. It's pretty serious, but now we've got to ask ourselves what role do potentially promoters play if any in the disaster of FTX well as I always like to share on YouTube I like to give my perspective and I'd like to start with some of my initial thoughts and these are just my initial thoughts on uh, this this, uh, a disaster of FTX So first things first: I Think it's worth looking at the big argument that the Uh attorneys make and the argument is hey, promoters bear responsibility and the question there I believe should be challenged with a few scenarios. So let's go through some of these scenarios and I don't have the conclusions to all of them, but I want to run through some of them with you to see what do you think.

So first things first, let's say a real estate agent I'm a real estate agent and you call me up and say Hey Kevin I watch you on YouTube I want to buy a house in San Antonio and I refer you to an agent in San Antonio That agent then sells you a three bedroom, two bath house and two years later that house falls into a sinkhole and it collapses. It gets destroyed. You lost everything, nobody got injured, but you lost. Let's say two hundred thousand dollars in value that the insurance did not cover for you.

So now you're in the whole two hundred thousand dollars Who is is responsible for that two hundred thousand dollar loss? Well, first and foremost the question would be, did you have insurance enough insurance to cover that sort of natural disaster, right? The second question would be, did the Builder negligently build that property to where it didn't have a strong enough Foundation Or whatever. the third question would be, Did somebody else influence the soils around the area Like did somebody dig a mine under your house and your house fell into a sinkhole? because of that, right? What actually caused the damage to occur In the case of FTX That's obvious. It's Tim Bigman Freed and it's Alameda Now what about your home inspectors? Are your home inspectors responsible? Well, this is where we go to more of a maybe level right? Were there red flags that the inspectors could have reasonably picked up at that time? Now home inspectors have access to the property That would be like Auditors actually having access to financials at FTX Those people might have some responsibility. Maybe if there were red flags evident, but if all the information was fraud and that couldn't be flushed out, then then maybe it all goes back to FTX right? So back in the example of the house, what about the real estate agent? Well, if the real estate agent referred you to vendors and the vendors did their job, or the vendors were capable of doing their job, Whether they did their job, well or not.

Does the real estate agent bear any responsibility for the home falling into the hole? Well, that gets a little more blurry, right. It's sort of like a it's like a spectrum. It's like who's responsible. Well, the more we go away from who's truly responsible, the less responsibility there really seems to be.

And so I think then you could take it one step further and say well is in this example Uh Kevin responsible for referring you to an agent and maybe getting a kickback or a referral fee for referring you to that agent, right? Maybe it was a five thousand dollar referral fee? Let's just say as an example and the question is, well, how how is that potentially responsible for either a builder or an inspector being fraudulent or the actual property being a fraud? Well, I Think that is really what this lawsuit is trying to get to the bottom of the lawsuit's trying to say? Well, we think the person all the way at the end the people creating the idea of hey, go check out FTX by the way we're sponsored by FTX The lawsuit is essentially alleging that those folks the people who suggested FTX are responsible for fraud in any way for fraud At FTX That's like saying the agent who referred you to another agent is responsible for your home all the way down chain, falling into a sinkhole. It's quite frankly, in my opinion, ludicrous. And I'll explain in a different way: why I Think it's ludicrous. Let's say a car Reviewer is paid by Toyota to test drive a new Toyota And let's say it's the Toyota Mirai it's hydrogen and somebody buys that car, drives it and then it explodes and somebody gets injured.

Is the content creator who made a review of that car responsible? Well, I Think that ultimately is the question that everybody is asking At what point is somebody's opinion on a good or a service enough to make them liable for that good or service? And I Think this is where it's useful to look at the relationship between somebody who's sharing an opinion and an idea and somebody who is hired to perform a specific goal. If you need legal advice, you might hire an attorney to write you an LLC. It might be my opinion as not legal advice that it's a good idea to make sure you have good insurance for your property, an umbrella insurance policy, and hey, maybe you should look into getting an LLC. But if you then set up an LLC and you didn't know there would be a bunch of fees that would come with that.

Does that make me liable? No, of course not. Because ultimately you took an idea whether I'm paid by an LLC forming company or not, you're taking an idea to form an LLC. Now it's incumbent upon the individual to take responsibility and find somebody who can give them actual professional advice. That's called doing your due diligence.

Now you can do your due diligence by hiring your own personal financial advisor, your own attorney on a retainer, your own doctor, your own surgeon. These are people that you're hiring to specifically help you. And so for example, when I hear tax suggestions online and somebody says hey, you should do, you should form an S corp or you should form a C Corp or whatever I don't I hold them accountable for what I end up doing with that sort of idea I take that idea and I go to the professionals who surround me and I say hey, what do you think about this idea Because those professionals are hired to give me specifically advice and I think that's a big differentiation is at what point does sort of the promotion of an idea or a suggestion paid or unpaid rise to the level of actually being personalized advice? And in my opinion, it doesn't in my opinion, at no point does me saying I think oil is going down and it's a good short rise to the level of personal financial advice. At no point does me saying hey, I'm investing in something rise to the level of personalized Financial Advice: personalized Financial Advice is when somebody signs a contract with a financial advisor and says hey, I am paying you specifically to advise on my portfolio and by signing that contract now, the other person is taking the fiduciary obligation of providing the best responsibility and service to that person for their case and see that.

I Think is the big difference here is when people who are content creators are sharing ideas and perspectives. they're doing just that. They're not giving you personalized insights, they're giving you ideas and perspectives. And the reality is, people have to put on their big boy pants and realize that if you make a decision because of something you heard online, that's your responsibility.

I Heard investing in Block five was a great idea and guess what? I lost all my money investing in Block fi that I put into it I put 420 000 in a block fight and I lost every penny of it With fees, it was probably closer to four hundred thirty three thousand dollars. and guess what did I call Anthony Pompliano and go hey man, you owe me all my money back because you put that fund together. No I'm a big boy I Know that somebody can make a suggestion. Somebody may even make money off of that suggestion.

Somebody may even be able to facilitate that process to make that happen to make it easier for me to invest in FDA in a block file. Never invest in the FTX Uh, But does that make that person liable? Well, in my opinion. No. You put on your big boy pants, you conduct your own due diligence, and you have to take responsibility for your own actions.

If somebody ignored all of the warnings that a YouTuber specifically myself have given about stable coins, not your keys, not your crypto, ultimately, that's on them. I've always been a believer that crypto is speculative and short of Regulation I Think it. It should have a very tiny portion of someone's portfolio. and if somebody chooses to engage in crypto, that is on them now.

Obviously, in hindsight, FDX was a scam. It was a fraud. Did we know that up front? Of course not. Of course not.

So while it's unfortunate that and now my insurance company is going to have to deal with this and I feel bad for them and I'll make sure I do whatever I can to make sure my insurance company is aided in this process. I Think it would be very devastating for any dime of obligation to come out of this lawsuit, not only because, well, I am slightly biased, but I'm also limited because of insurance highly, but also because it would totally change this. Like the entire social media landscape, it would basically say if you make an opinion and you have followers, you're liable for that opinion. or another example, if you promote a product that you're paid for like if I say hey man I really love these headphones I think they're great and I get paid a hundred dollars every time I say that and then somebody puts this on and goes in a pool and Gets Zapped Do I All of a sudden become responsible for that? Well, obviously my opinion is no, but this would be a massive, massive rewrite of social media.

Uh, and really, just freedom of speech. Uh I Think as long as advertisements are properly disclosed, it's totally fair for something to be an advertisement. Now don't get me wrong, I Do think it is incumbent upon the entire industry to be more, uh, diligent in making sure that items or products or goods or services that are promoted are the best possible, but that still doesn't rise to the level of making someone a personal advisor for somebody else. They're not a fiduciary.

they're not under a personal contractual relationship with somebody. so to put it in: English I Think ultimately, people have to put on their big boy pants. There's not even an individual who's filing this lawsuit. it's just a group of attorneys trying to, you know, get attention or whatever it is I Mean you know that's what attorneys do.

Can I blame those attorneys who are probably going to watch every minute of this video seven times? No. I I Don't blame those attorneys. Ultimately, you get your law degree and then you find stuff to do and honestly, it's going to be quite interesting. Like there's one one thing I Can guarantee much like Elon Musk says, this will be entertaining because there hasn't been a situation like this before where the role of a promoter has come into question.

Obviously I have the POV that in no way does the role of a promoter rise to the level of a fiduciary, real estate agent, financial advisor, doctor, lawyer, or otherwise? of course not. But I guess we'll see. so I don't know. Those are just my thoughts I'm curious to hear everybody else's thoughts.

Those are some of my initial thoughts. obviously again I feel bad for everybody who is affected I do think there should be some kind of Creator Fund in the future? Uh where some of, uh, some of, uh, the creators who want to participate contribute as sort of like a charity to provide uh, some uh, money for people who lost money. but that would be as Charity not out of requirement, not because they have to or promoters did something wrong solely as a gesture of good faith. I agree with that and I would lead the effort for something like that.

you know that would then all of a sudden change the game entirely for every realtor. As an example, hey man, who do you recommend as a property manager? oh sorry, can't make a recommendation to you because I can't guarantee their results. Why does a promoter have to guarantee the results of something they're promoting? The results of something they're promoting should be guaranteed by the company itself that's providing the good or the service, not the promoter. A promoter is just a a face somebody who can share an idea or a perspective that is then subject to the review of the individual.

So I do think they'll probably be sort of a new wake up of a lot of hate and and drama uh, from very, uh, probably predominantly younger and loud screaming individuals around this uh who probably didn't even lose a dime in FTX to the people who actually lost money in FTX I feel terrible. but quite frankly I think most of the people who lost money in FTX know deep down inside it's on FTX it's not on promoters and to the attorneys who are looking for something to do I don't blame them I I mean I I think they're wrong and I think they're going to lose. But the thing is, attorneys generally don't get evaluated based on all the cases they lost. They get evaluated based on the cases they won.

So the American legal system is set up in such a way that hey, more at bats, you know, just keep swinging the bat. So obviously in this case I think it's ludicrous, but we'll take it from there.