Celebrity Crypto-Hawkers Should Get a Close Look

Remember when the actor Matt Damon pontificated about how “fortune favors the brave” people who invest with Crypto.com? Or when the director Spike Lee applauded the digital rebellion championed by Coin Cloud? Since the spectacular collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Mr. Damon, Mr. Lee and most other crypto-touting celebrities have largely gone silent — and for good reason.

There was little precedent for the scale and the star power that characterized the deluge of high-profile celebrity endorsements promoting cryptocurrencies. And now crypto values and crypto firms are going bust, leading investors’ savings to tank, too.

As the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Internet Enforcement, I believe regulators have some of these celebrity endorsers squarely in their sights and, when appropriate, will pursue them aggressively. Buying a bottle of Gatorade or a Rolex watch shilled by a celebrity probably never put someone’s life savings at risk. But buying into an endorsement of crypto certainly did, and these endorsers’ actions warrant intense scrutiny in the least.