Huge London Public Transport Agency Tackles Encrypted Ads After Floki Inu Meme Token Campaign Floods City Travel System | Currency News | Financial and business news

[ad_1]

Doge missed? Get floki? ad spotted in the London Underground.

Amanda Cooper

Transport for London said over the weekend that it will ensure that crypto announcements are now in line with its policies. “Missed Doge? Get Floki” posters have popped up throughout the city’s travel system, touting the unregulated crypto coin itself. S iân Berry, a member of the Green Party in the London Assembly, said the British Guardian’s crypto ads were unethical. Sign up for our daily newsletter, 10 things before the opening bell here.

London Transport Authority to crack down on cryptocurrency ads after massive campaign to promote dogecoin floki inu fallout around the city’s travel system raised concerns over unregulated assets like this .

“Missed Doge? Get Floki” was the slogan that hit London tube stations, trains and buses in October. The three-week campaign for the meme floki inu token, inspired by Elon Musk’s dog, was even funded by a 4% marketing fee levied on buyers.

Some critics were concerned that the ads promoted a little-known, unregulated financial asset that they believed could be subject to manipulation, such as pump-and-dump schemes or fraud. There has so far been no evidence to suggest that floki inu has been subjected to such patterns.

“Since 2018, we’ve asked our advertising partners to send all cryptocurrency ads back to us for review before they run on our domain,” Chris Reader, Head of Commercial Media at Transport for Transport, told Insider on Monday. London (TfL).

“When we now look at the copy of cryptocurrency brands that wish to advertise on our domain, we make sure that the campaigns contain enough information to comply with both our policy and the ASA. [Advertising Standards Authority] decision.”

TfL’s policy was that nothing controversial or sensitive could be announced on its platforms, among others.

This is not the first time that a crypto advertiser has broken the rules. Earlier this year, the Luno crypto exchange launched an ad campaign on the underground and on London’s famous double-decker buses with the slogan “if you see bitcoin on the underground, it’s time to buy.” Britain’s advertising watchdog has banned the posters, calling them “misleading and irresponsible”.

Hedge crypto tokens are unregulated in the UK and officials have regularly expressed concerns about their risk. Charles Randell, chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator, said in a speech in September: “If you buy (crypto) you should be prepared to lose all your money.

“The FCA currently does not have the power to monitor how unregulated crypto-assets, like floki inu, are advertised to consumers,” a spokesperson for the regulator said in an emailed response.

A few weeks ago, scammers ran off with at least $ 2 million in a pump and dump scam involving the Squid Game token, which takes its name from the hit Netflix show, but isn’t there. not affiliated.

Floki inu is a legitimate cryptocurrency. But he carried warnings on his posters about the risks to potential buyers.

“Where the ad says ‘this is absolutely unregulated you might lose all your money,’ they should have been in doubt. I don’t think cryptocurrency ads should be on the network. They should have been in doubt. are unethical, “S iân Berry, the Green Party member told the London Assembly to the British Guardian newspaper.

Experts said that one way to check the legitimacy of a coin is to find out if it has different real-world use cases. According to the floki inu website, the coin will be linked to an up-and-coming gaming metaverse called Valhalla which is in development, as well as a non-fungible token market.

[ad_2]