Indeed, the ASA is scrutinizing “a broad body of advertisements in this sector” to determine whether or not they violate advertising regulations. Although the team behind the Floki Inu cryptocurrency advertisement campaign claimed that they had been “legally cleared.” The developers stated:
Worries over the legitimacy of the token
Doubts over the legitimacy of the crypto token had surfaced after no information about its developers could be found online; however, on this note, Floki Inu informed the BBC in an email: It claimed that its “legal entity” was based in Georgia and that it had shared this information with “strategic partners” during know-your-customer checks. Floki’s lead developer, according to the email, is Jackie Xu, who lives in the Netherlands. The email continued:
TFL urged to ban crypto ads
Transport for London (TfL) had been asked to restrict advertisements for unregulated financial products following the completion of a three-week poster campaign by Floki. The U.K. capital’s transportation operator has stated that there have been no widespread complaints from the public about crypto ads. However, some politicians in the U.K. have expressed concerns that the TFL should not have approved the advertisements for Floki Inu. A member of the Green Party’s London Assembly delegation, Siân Berry, put forward a question to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London on the matter:
What exactly is Floki?
Floki Inu is a cryptocurrency named after Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog; as a result of his support for the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin which has a Shiba Inu as its mascot, Musk has been dubbed “the Dogefather.” On June 25, Musk wrote on Twitter, “My Shiba Inu will be named Floki.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded with a tweet on September 12 that read, “Floki has finally arrived.” Both an ERC20 token and a BEP20 token are available for FLOKI users.
Crypto scams
In order to fight the problem of crypto scams, the chairman of the Financial Conduct Ability (FCA), Charles Randell, called on ministers to give the FCA the authority to monitor crypto-assets after Kim Kardashian was paid to promote Ethereum Max, a token that had been established a month earlier by unknown developers. Following the release of the Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) series Squid Game, a cryptocurrency based on the show garnered widespread attention at the end of October, propelling the coin’s value by 310,000% in a single day, reaching $2,856, according to CoinMarketCap. A few days later, the value of the SQUID token dropped to zero within minutes as the unknown scammers who developed it departed, allegedly with a profit of at least $2 million. Featured image: A Floki Inu cryptocurrency advert on a London Tube train. Photograph: Umut Akalin [coinbase]
