In summary
- Pump.fun blocked access to UK users following a warning from the FCA, with this being a permanent decision as confirmed by its co-founder.
- The platform, which accounted for 62% of transactions on Solana in November, has been embroiled in multiple controversies since its launch.
- Being registered in the United Kingdom, the ban on local users raises serious doubts about the legal future of the company according to experts.
Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun is no longer available for use in the UK, with the site’s creators taking action following a warning from the country’s financial regulator. The co-founder known as Alon told Decrypt that this is not a temporary measure, and confirmed that only the United Kingdom is affected.
According to a notice from the site, the United Kingdom is now a restricted jurisdiction for Pump.fun, a platform that allows users to create and trade Solana tokens without coding experience. This action was taken “in accordance with United Kingdom laws and regulations,” the notice says, further noting that “this site is currently not available to users in the United Kingdom.”
The ban on UK users comes three days after UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning against the launchpad.
“This company may be offering or promoting financial services or products without our permission,” the FCA site states. “You should avoid dealing with this company and be careful of scams.”
The FCA declined to comment further to Decrypt. However, Alon confirmed to Decrypt that the decision was made by Pump.fun, and that the platform was not forced to exclude UK users.
“Everything that needs to be said is on the site,” Alon told Decrypt. “This is permanent.”
Pump.fun has been embroiled in multiple controversies since its launch in January. In May, a user of the platform set himself on fire, while doing a live broadcast on Kick, to promote his memecoin.
In October, child sexual abuse material was found on Pump.fun after information reached the moderation team. Recently, the livestream meta returned with threats to animal life, the decapitation of a chicken, and a faked suicide. The site then removed the live streaming feature.
Despite its questionable ethical and legal position, Pump.fun accounted for 62% of transactions on Solana in November, according to Dune on-chain data.
Before the meme coin developer caught fire, a disgruntled former employee drained $2 million from the protocol. He said he did it because he wanted to “kill” the protocol, since it had “inadvertently hurt people for a long time.” Jarett Dunn (also known as Stacc on Twitter) pleaded guilty in August, but is attempting to withdraw this plea—as it appears he is trying to argue that the attack was carried out in an attempt to be a whistleblower against the company.
“Where is this company registered and paying taxes?” Dunn wrote on Twitter, in response to the ban on users in the United Kingdom.
Pump.fun is registered in the United Kingdom as Baton Corporation Ltd., with its employees, at least at the time of the attack, working in London. The ban on UK users therefore raises serious questions about the company’s legal future.
Cryptocurrency lawyer Preston Byrne, Managing Partner at Byrne & Storm, warned about this last week, stating that the UK does not tolerate low levels of content moderation, something the platform appeared to be suffering from. Likewise, the site had no “terms of service, DMCA registration, copyright policy, or privacy policy,” which Byrne said put the company in a precarious legal position.
“The fact that the individuals who make up the founding team are all rumored to be UK residents complicates the picture a bit,” Byrne told Decrypt, “as it means that the UK has more influence over them than it otherwise would. a team from the USA.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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