Today, the team behind memecoin pump.fun launched a restriction for UK users.
Pump.fun was flagged as illegal by the UK Financial Conduct Authority just a few days earlier. To do business with the government in finance, most companies need approval from the regulator. This is the first time that Twitter has publicly restricted its use, even though it was previously criticized for a loose approach to moderating.
Notably, pump.fun — which allows users to launch Solana-based tokens for around $2 — took down its livestreaming feature last week after a number of violent and disturbing streams went viral.
Shardspace cofounder Avaunt explained in the Lightspeed Telegram Chat that the UK-blocking of this site does not represent a “ban” per se. It is more likely that pump.fun never registered properly and did not comply with UK’s Crypto guidelines. Now, the regulator holds it responsible.
Some Pump.fun links seem to be in the UK. Jarett DUNN, who was a former contractor at the time of exploiting this platform’s infancy back in May was arrested by London police. Dunn, an online troll who is notorious for his sarcastic remarks, made a serious claim about pump.fun being linked to Baton Corporation, which has its headquarters in the UK.
“Pump is not legally based in the UK,” The platform’s pseudonymous creator alon said to me via text. They declined to provide any further details.
When you take a step back, though, the fact that this restriction was put in place so late is surprising. The UK is no crypto libertarian paradise — for example, prediction market favorite Polymarket is already unavailable there. UK financial regulators claim to have removed “over 900 scam crypto websites and over 50 apps” From October 2023.
“Thought IP [address] restrictions were pretty common in this industry lol not quite sure why [everyone is] freaking out,” Tom, an anonymous Raydium contributor, sent me a message.
Pump.fun has been the most popular app on Solana — and at times in all of crypto — for much of this year. This popularity is bound to bring scrutiny. Especially when users behead chickens livestreaming in order to increase the price of a token. It’s difficult to believe that the SEC would not have taken action against Pump.fun if Gary Gensler had continued his tenure as SEC beyond this year.
It will be interesting to see how the fallout of pump.fun’s livestream mishap settles. Perhaps regulators will be able to do what criticism or backlash never could — slow down a startup that has already generated $283 million in revenue in its first year of existence.
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