A US court has ruled that the use of emojis associated with rocket ships, stock charts and money bags could be classed as investment advice.
Lisa Braganca, a former SEC branch chief, warned the public not to use certain emojis in promotional materials after a court ruled that DapperLabs used emojis as investment advice.
Braganca issued the warning via Twitter, referencing the recent court ruling against Dapper Labs.
Lisa Braganca via Twitter (24/02/2023)
According to a Feb. 22 ruling by Judge Victor Marrero, the use of emojis related to rocket ships, stock charts and money bags could be classified as investment advice.
The ruling against the emojis was included in a lawsuit filed against Dapper Labs and its CEO Roham Gharegozlou, alleging that it violated securities laws by offering NBA Top Shot Moments.
NBA Top Shot Moments are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that capture key highlights and video clips from NBA games.
The plaintiffs allege that Dapper Labs promoted NBA Shot Moments as an investment opportunity through its marketing materials featuring carefully selected emojis.
“…While the word ‘profit’ literally did not appear in any of the tweets, the ‘rocket ship’ emoji, the ‘stock chart’ emoji, and the ‘bag of money’ emoji objectively meant one thing: a financial return on an investment,” the filing said.
The court filing cited a tweet in which DapperLabs used rocket ship, stock market and money bag emojis to show market performance.
Dapper Labs argued that the use of emojis in tweets was intended to provide accuracy in market data, not to boost sales.
However, some members of the crypto community believe that emojis can mean different things to different people, and therefore, rules on their use could hinder free speech.