Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a class action lawsuit in the US over his promotion of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, the BBC reports.
The plaintiffs claim his endorsement led them to make loss-making investments.
They are seeking damages of “a sum exceeding” $1bn.
In November 2022, Binance announced its first “CR7” collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in partnership with Ronaldo, which the footballer said would reward fans “for all the years of support”.
NFTs are virtual assets that can be bought and sold, but which have no real-world form of their own – in other words they only exist digitally. Generally, they are used to mark ownership of something, such as a picture or video online.
“CR7” refers to Ronaldo’s initials and shirt number, and is used as branding in a range of products, from footwear to fragrances, that have helped make him one of the wealthiest athletes on earth.
In a social media video announcing the partnership, Ronaldo told would-be investors “we are going to change the NFT game and take football to the next level.”
