A digital token named after Elon Musk's new dog, Floki, has launched hundreds of ads in the capital in what is called "an all-out assault on London's public transport system," raising questions about who is responsible. of high-risk risks. investments advertised so widely.
The Floki Inu coin is one of many cryptocurrencies of dogs like Shiba Inu inspired by Tesla's Elon Musk, who has repeatedly promoted Dogecoins on social media, but this week sent the price of Shiba Inu plummeting when he tweeted that, of In fact, he does not own coins.
In recent weeks, a large number of physical ads with the slogan "Missed Doge?" Get Floki โhave appeared in tube, train and bus stations in the capital in an attempt to get Londoners to invest in the currency.
"To keep the momentum moving, Floki Inu is storming the market with very targeted and aggressive marketing campaigns," the coin's promoters wrote on Medium last month.
"These ad campaigns will run together and will be a total assault on London's public transport system."
Floki's head of marketing, renamed Saber, told the FT that the broad ad campaign aims to "legitimize" the coin and increase "average consumer confidence" to buy it.
"There are a lot of scammers in this game," he told the FT.
In the same Medium post, Fluki said it had already contracted to spend nearly $ 1.5 million on marketing, which it finances by imposing a 4% "marketing tax" on its buyers.
According to the coin's website, this is used "for purely marketing purposes", to drive the "continued development of the Floki Inu ecosystem" and to "onboard influencers", pay for "strategic ads" and promote events such as "send tokens. Floki Inu ". in the space."
Who is responsible for the scrutiny?
Transport for London (TfL) will be keen to benefit from new ad campaigns on its network as influx increases, after suffering a record ยฃ 100 million drop in advertising revenue across its network during Covid restrictions.
Chris Reader, head of business media at TfL, told City AM: "Since 2018, we have asked our advertising partners to submit all cryptocurrency advertising to us for review before it is published on our estate."
"By reviewing the copy now of cryptocurrency brands wanting to advertise on our estate, we ensure that campaigns contain sufficient information to comply with both our policy and ASA regulations."
Meanwhile, FCA Chairman Charles Randall called last month for the city's watchdog to have more powers to regulate cryptocurrency-related ads, to clamp down on fraudulent claims, and to warn people about the risks associated with high-risk investments.
He also urged people not to follow cryptocurrency advice from influencers' social media ads, warning at the time: โScammers routinely pay influencers on social media to help them pump up and shed new ones. tokens on the back of pure speculation. Some influencers promote coins that just happen to not exist at all. "
And last week the watchdog posted investigate That showed that 69 percent of people who have invested in cryptocurrencies since the dawn of the pandemic mistakenly believed that the product they invested in was regulated by the body.
The regulator's investigation was fueled by the pandemic-driven surge of more than a million UK investors increasing their holdings or buying a high-risk investment last year.
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has pledged to crack down on misleading crypto ad marketing that fails to highlight the risks of investing, classifying them as a "red alert" priority.
Since the ASA launched an ad alert system to detect fake ads last year, the watchdog said 95 percent of the alerts it has received are related to bitcoin scams.
Comments have been requested from the ASA.
TfL has received three emergency funding packages from the central government since March 2020. Three weeks ago, the troubled network asked the Treasury for $ 500 million in support for the remainder of the financial year and another ยฃ 1.2 billion next year for "Ensuring London's Recovery" from the pandemic.
