Shaquille O’Neal must defend allegations in Astrals NFT lawsuit

A U.S. court has partially granted and dismissed a class action lawsuit against Shaquille O’Neal for his involvement in the NFT project Astrals, according to documents filed Friday, via CoinDesk.

Astrals, featuring 10,000 NFT 3D avatars and a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), allowed NFTs as virtual avatars, with the Galaxy token as the DAO’s governance token.

The lawsuit claimed O’Neal promoted Astrals, urging investors to join, but abandoned the project after FTX collapsed, causing the value to drop.

The U.S. District Court for Southern Florida dismissed claims that O’Neal was a “control person,” but ruled he could be considered a “seller.” The court upheld allegations that Astrals sold unregistered securities. O’Neal and the project must respond by September 12, 2024.