Former NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal has agreed to pay $11 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit tied to his involvement within the Solana-based Astrals NFT undertaking.
A Florida federal decide, Federico Moreno, accredited the ultimate settlement on April 1, with the order made public on April 8.
The settlement establishes an $11 million fund for eligible traders who bought Astrals NFTs between Might 2022 and January 15, 2024, or acquired the undertaking’s GLXY tokens throughout that interval.
Choose Approves $2.9M in Authorized Charges in Shaquille O’Neal’s Astrals NFT Settlement
The court docket additionally accredited $2.9 million in legal professional charges and related prices. Choose Moreno dominated the payment request was “fair and reasonable,” with no objections from the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, initially filed in Might 2023, alleged that Shaquille O’Neal had promoted and helped launch the Astrals NFT assortment, which plaintiffs argued amounted to the unregistered sale of securities.
They claimed to have suffered monetary losses because of O’Neal’s promotional efforts.
In August, Choose Moreno acknowledged that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged the previous athlete acted as a vendor beneath securities regulation. O’Neal reached a settlement settlement in November.
Astrals NFTs launched in April 2022 and featured 10,000 distinctive 3D avatars created by artist Damien Guimoneau.
The undertaking pitched itself as an immersive metaverse expertise the place customers may work together with one another and with O’Neal himself.
Nevertheless, the gathering has proven no indicators of exercise prior to now two years, based on NFT market OpenSea.
Final yr, a U.S. federal court docket partially dismissed a class-action lawsuit in opposition to O’Neal associated to his involvement within the NFT undertaking Astrals.
The lawsuit accused O’Neal of being the general public face of Astrals, urging traders to hitch the undertaking with phrases like, “Hop on the wave before it’s too late.”
Regardless of the collapse of cryptocurrency trade FTX in November 2022, O’Neal remained publicly supportive of Astrals.
In its ruling, the court docket dismissed the declare that O’Neal was a “control person” throughout the undertaking, that means somebody who held precise energy or management over its operations.
NFT Market Exercise Stays Subdued
NFT market exercise stays subdued in 2025.
As of April 7, whole NFT gross sales quantity stood at simply $27 million for the week, a steep decline from the $2 billion-plus weekly volumes recorded throughout the 2021 market peak, based on CryptoSlam.
As reported, NFT buying and selling volumes plummeted by greater than 60% in February, persevering with a downward pattern that started in early 2024.
It’s price noting that there was a pattern of firms discontinuing their involvement within the NFT house.
Again in March, Starbucks, the famend multinational espresso chain, made the choice to terminate its NFT rewards program.
In January, gaming retailer GameStop introduced the closure of its NFT market after scaling again its crypto companies over the previous two years.
Likewise, X, beneath the possession of Elon Musk, discontinued a function that allowed premium customers to make use of NFT photos as their profile footage.
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