The UK has banned memecoin platform Pump Fun after the country’s financial watchdog added it to its warning list.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published the warning on December 3, saying, “[Pump Fun] may be providing or promoting financial services or products without our permission. You should avoid dealing with this firm and beware of scams.”

Trying to access Pump Fun from the UK now brings up a notice that states, “In accordance with the laws and regulations of the United Kingdom, this site is currently unavailable to users in the United Kingdom.” 

Users with coins deposited in the “privy wallet” are given a link to withdraw their coins. 

Read more: Hacked X and Insta accounts used for Pump Fun rug pulls

The FCA’s warning means that if you lose money to Pump Fun as a UK resident in any way that warrants a complaint, i.e through criminal means or the business collapsing, you will not be able to access the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 

Pump Fun was the subject of criticism last November after its livestream feature showed users holding a fish at gunpoint, making violent threats, and performing gross acts on camera. The backlash prompted Pump Fun to disable the feature for an “indefinite time period.”

The platform has also become a hotspot for rug pulls that involve hackers targeting celebrity Instagram accounts.

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The post ‘Ave you got a license for that memecoin? UK bans Pump Fun appeared first on Protos.

Pump Science, a so-called “DeSci” game that utilizes memecoin platform Pump Fun, has reportedly had its crypto wallet hijacked and used to create fraudulent tokens, after its private key was left public in the codebase.

Pump Science calls itself a “gamified longevity research platform.” The project, which is pushed by memecoin influencers who are trying to promote decentralized science as the next big thing, creates tokens based on various chemicals and claims to utilize data from real animal experiments.

It says that it will explore human trials once the current animal trials are over. It also claims that token holders will be able to sell “intervention” rights to chemical suppliers and will possess the rights to “compound IP” and its development.

The project’s wallet was exploited when developers left its private key in the codebase after a discrepancy with Pump Fun’s free token creation feature. It also encountered issues with launching and buying the first tokens. 

An attacker duly found the key and has been creating tokens using the wallet in an attempt to exploit newcomers to the game. 

Read more: Pump Fun livestreams spark backlash from disgusted traders

Pump Science claims that the only two legitimate tokens from that wallet are the two-month-old Urolithin A ($URO) and Rifampicin ($RIF). The rest, including Cocaine ($COKE) and Urolithin B, C, D, and E, are fraudulent. 

Pump Science is burying negative comments

Pump Science appears bothered by the reception to the hack, and is hiding comments from multiple users calling the project a scam and venting their frustration at the wallet exploit.

Users have called them “idiot grifters,” “a child,” and said, “If you carry your ‘investigations’ or ‘experiments’ in the same way you carry yourself in this matter, this so-called ‘Scify’ is doomed.”

Read more: Shock! Two thirds of memecoins now ‘worthless’ says new research

Pump Science stated that it cannot change the compromised wallet address from the Pump Fun account. It’s changed the name of the Pump Fun profile to “@dont_trust” but it appears the hacker may be able to change it back tomorrow. 

As of yesterday evening, Pump Science warned that the attacker was still creating coins and stressed, “THESE TOKENS ARE FRAUDULENT.”

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The post DeSci game Pump Science exploited after making private key public appeared first on Protos.

In recent months, a total of $3.5 million worth of SOL has been raised by Pump Fun-based memecoins after being promoted via hacked X and Instagram accounts.

Scammers targeted accounts belonging to businesses and celebrities such as McDonald’s, Usher, and Wiz Khalifa. They used their wide reach to tease a token’s ticker or contract address, or simply link to a token’s Pump Fun page.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has traced the initial funding of each of the 16 tokens on the Solana-based launchpad, connecting each incident to funds raised from the preceding scams.

Read more: ‘Thanks for the 20 bandos!’ Teen behind QUANT rug pull misses out on $4M profit

The incidents were linked either by direct funding between associated addresses, or the fact that proceeds were transferred into shared crypto casino deposit addresses.

The affected social media accounts were wide-ranging and also include Breaking Bad actor Dean Norris, Enoshima Aquarium in Japan, Andy Ayrey (creator of AI crypto bot ‘Truth Terminal’), and the owner of Kabosu, the Shiba Inu behind the original ‘Doge’ meme and its associated crypto.

The results of the scams were also varied, with the most lucrative target being Andy Ayrey at a total of $2.2 million across six tokens launched. The McDonald’s GRIMACE token netted over $690,000, and proceeds from the USHER token totaled 4,868 SOL worth approximately $650,000 at the time, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Once an account is hacked, it can be difficult to regain full control; in the Andy Ayrey case, the X account was compromised for a number of days. Blockchain security expert Pablo Sabbatellla detailed the frustrations involved in trying to recover accounts and dealing with X’s “terrible security UX.”

Teasing a “Part 2” of the investigation, ZachXBT has also promised to “expose multiple threat actors linked to the 9+ compromises,” on top of the “on-chain connections.”

Past investigations have led to the arrest of scammers in both France and the US.

Read more: How to stay safe on-chain: Three crypto users lose $876K within hours

All fun and games?

Pump Fun has recently devolved into a hive of extreme attention-grabbing behavior, with token creators resorting to increasingly shocking lengths to stand out amongst the approximately 50,000 tokens being launched daily.

The race to the bottom, which reportedly included creators threatening murder, suicide, and other extreme acts, culminated in the platform removing its live-streaming feature on Monday.

Read more: Pump Fun livestreams spark backlash from disgusted traders

In a ‘moderation message’ posted directly to the Pump Fun website, the team informed users that the feature would be paused “for an indefinite time period until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity.”

Since its launch in January, Pump Fun has made over a quarter of a billion dollars in fees across almost four million tokens created on the platform, according to a dashboard on Dune Analytics.

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The post Hacked X and Insta accounts used for Pump Fun rug pulls appeared first on Protos.

Pump Fun is facing calls to disable its livestream feature after a weekend of chaos saw, amongst another things, a man hold a goldfish at gunpoint, a kid threaten to murder his family, and another man promise to relieve himself while trapped in a dog cage. 

The token creation website was hit with very public backlash on X by shocked users. Among these was Pudgy Penguins’ safety project manager, who posted, “Shut down the livestream feature. This is out of control.”

A core engineer for Eigen Labs also voiced their displeasure, saying, “Pump fun is going to screw over the entire industry.” 

Even before the weekend began, Pump Fun co-founder Alon stressed, “With the live streaming meta in full force, there have been many people that came forward with some very legitimate concerns regarding what content is allowed on the platform.”

He added, “Moving forward, we will try to be more transparent about the rules,” and noted that Pump Fun does engage in moderation. However, despite these efforts, many questionable tokens have made it through and brought with them some interesting cheerleaders.

Here’s some of the most deranged token-shilling content on Pump Fun.

Pretend suicide

One token that received plenty of flak was uploaded by someone claiming they would hang themselves unless the price of their token increased its market cap.  

However, it has been claimed that this was just a stunt and noted that parts of the apparent suicide video were less than convincing. “I saw the video and the guy moved his arms as to grab his rescuer’s shoulders. Sick, but fake,” said the eagle-eyed X user.

Goldfish staring down the barrel

Another disturbing setup saw a masked man holding up a goldfish bag while pointing a gun at its occupant. In his case, the creator was demanding their coin’s market cap hit 1 million or the fish gets it. 

Read more: Pump.fun dev literally eats ass to pump shitcoin on livestream

Another animal-themed stunt was carried out to pump a token called Chicken Fight Club. This particularly gory piece of PR saw the coin’s creators livestreaming themselves beheading a chicken. They then allegedly created a token called Justice for Mike, apparently named after the chicken, that reached $6 million before plummeting in price — a typical Pump Fun pump and dump. 

Gun Guns Guns

Many Pump Fun promotions also, for some reason, involve guns. Indeed, beyond threatening a fish, one token creator claimed they would shoot up a school. Another, who looks way too young to own a firearm, threatened to shoot his family with a shotgun unless his token made it to a $60,000 market cap.

It’s unclear however if the shotgun is even real.

A stream with actual gunshots saw one token creator firing his gun every time his token pumped in price. 

Just plain gross

On the more disgusting end of the scale, a man wearing a balaclava and leash while pretending to be a dog in a cage wrote on a whiteboard that they would defecate in the cage if the market cap of his token reached 1 million. Other milestones claimed he would eat dog food and lick his testicles (while clothed). 

Read more: Shock! Two thirds of memecoins now ‘worthless’ says new research

Then there’s Trevv, a young white man doing everything he could to promote his $NIGGA token while being as edgy as possible. Covered in chocolate, seemingly huffing galaxy gas, smoking a joint, and missing a tooth, Trevv begged to be on a podcast, presumably to promote his token. 

Given the questionable content finding its way onto the platform, it’s unclear exactly what measures Pump Fun is going to take beyond making its rules more transparent, or if it will even shut down its livestream feature.

As of now, Alon’s post last Friday was the most recent official statement regarding the Pump Fun chaos.

Protos has reached out to Pump Fun for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.  

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According to a new analysis of 1,500 memecoin promotions, two-thirds are now worthless and another 10% have crashed over 90%. Not only that, despite cherry-picked testimonials and celebrations of outsized gains, researchers found that only 1% of these coins ever rally 10X after their initial endorsement.

This disappointing performance is particularly noteworthy given the otherwise bullish crypto market that has added over $1 trillion in market capitalization in the past 30 days.

The research from Coinwire corroborates analysis by Protos which revealed that 99.99% of the 1.7 million meme coins launched on Solana’s Pump Fun never sustained a market capitalization of even $1 million.

According to Coinwire’s analysis of 377 influencers with at least 10,000 followers on X, promoters with larger followings tended to achieve poorer results than those with smaller audiences. The more popular influencers convinced more people to view — and presumably buy — the worst cohort of a terrible class of investments.

However, the truth is that all promoters delivered dismal results that lay bare the reality behind dreamy advertisements about overnight success.

Read more: All bitcoin models destroyed: Stock-to-Flow, Power Law, Rainbow

Typically quiet losers on these schemes have voiced their complaints on social media.

Indeed, many have admitted to losing life savings and going into credit card debt through trading memecoins. Another admitted to losing $45,000 while others lost money buying coins based on recommendations from celebrities.

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A gloating teenage crypto trader was doxxed yesterday after making more than $50,000 from dumping tokens on Pump Fun. 

The 15-year-old known as Griffin created QUANT and used $348 worth of Solana (SOL) to purchase 51 million tokens before selling them for $29,953.

Not only that, he livestreamed the entire rug pull, telling viewers, “Holy fuck thanks for the 20 bandos” before freaking out, drooling, and then sticking his middle fingers up at the camera. 

Read more: Pump.fun dev literally eats ass to pump shitcoin on livestream

Lookonchain reports that Griffin subsequently created another two tokens called LUCY and SORRY. Despite the SORRY token appearing to be an attempt at an apology for his previous scheme, he proceeded to dump his holdings again, making a further $24,000.    

However, despite his more-than-$50,000 profit, Griffin has seemingly missed out on an even bigger bag. His already-sold QUANT holdings were reportedly worth $4 million this morning after the token picked up in popularity. It now has a 24-hour volume of $280 million.

Hundreds of crypto-focused accounts have shared the news of the stunt with some claiming that Griffin’s school and family were doxxed. Some even shared pictures from his mother’s Instagram account. 

Indeed, one user’s screen recording shows the young trader with his mother on his 14th birthday last March.

Links to his family’s Instagram accounts are also all over Pump Fun, and disgruntled traders and trolls have been spamming his mother.

One comment reads, “Your son stole my fucking money.” The Instagram accounts are private at the time of writing. 

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The post ‘Thanks for the 20 bandos!’ Teen behind QUANT rug pull misses out on $4M profit appeared first on Protos.

A new platform modeled after the degenerate Solana meme coin platform Pump.fun has the crypto community buzzing about the dawn of AI-managed hedge funds. In reality, humans are behind everything, including its first proof-of-concept: the purposefully misspelled ai16z fund endorsed by a real co-founder of a16z.

Analogous to greenwashing adding a veneer of ecological responsibility to an organization’s public image, AI-washing is spraying crypto projects with superficial sophistication. Although AI-branded altcoins have proliferated for months, this month’s debut of AI crypto trading funds suggests the trend is far from over.

Truth_Terminal kicked off this latest iteration of AI-washed marketing. Its owner kept his human decision-making quiet as he and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen encouraged public celebration of his non-existent AI-managed trades. 

Spotting success in misleading the public about the supposed advent of market-beating AI traders, Andreessen has now promoted a platform for creating AI hedge funds. Seemingly cloned from the Solana meme coin generator Pump.fun — that has always hidden its 99.99% failure rate — Daos.fun is a kickstarter for ‘AI-managed’ funds that are not actually managed by AIs.

In reality, humans trade meme coins with users’ funds instead.

Bleak descriptions of AI-managed crypto funds

Descriptions for supposed AI hedge fund managers are as dystopian as they are sardonic. The Daos.fun fund that Andreessen endorsed claims to be an “AI VC fund, fully managed by Marc AIndreessen,” the purposefully misspelled “greatest living VC.”

A fund entitled “Gaza Relief Fund” admits in fine print that “none of these funds are going to Gaza lol,” which is supposedly funny. Another misspelled fund, Sequoai Capital, “may or may not use AI to help make calculated bets.”

Comments from believers duly poured in. “First AI agent running a fund by itself,” chanted one user. “An AI agent that will trade on its own,” cheered another. Claims of “the first memecoin fund fully run by an AI agent” earned tens of thousands of views.

Of course, no fund on Daos.fun is actually operated by an AI. The creator and owner of ai16z is a non-AI human named Shaw. Truth_Terminal relies on the human discretion of Andy Ayrey who controls its funds, and no AI created or traded the GOAT memecoin as many were led to believe.

Daos.fun is careful to never claim that AI agents actually own or control any funds.

Even the largest AI-washed fund on the platform, ai16z, has lost two-thirds of its assets since yesterday. Briefly peaking around $96 million, investors in the AI-branded fund realized that most of its assets were its human creator’s own token, Shaw’s Degen Spartan AI token. The fund’s assets have fallen to $37 million as of publication time.

Read more: OpenAI tool used to create voice bot that can drain crypto wallets

AI-washing and regulatory obligations

Promoters of financial products like trading funds have immense legal obligations, may not promote securities offerings without filing public disclosures, may not transact with sanctioned entities, and have advertising, registration, and compliance obligations. 

Anyone who manages money on behalf of others in the US must adhere to fiduciary standards and strict regulatory requirements, including recordkeeping, licensure, and disclosure obligations.

As such, claiming that an AI agent somehow manages the funds even though a human controls the private keys of its crypto wallet is a gamble of wordplay.

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The post Marc Andreessen’s crypto-trading AI breakthrough is human-operated appeared first on Protos.

Almost 150 memecoins themed around the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne have been created on the crypto platform Pump.fun merely minutes after his passing was announced.

The first memecoin themed around Payne’s death was created yesterday at 9:29 PM (UTC+1), minutes after his death took place at around 5 PM in Argentina (UTC−3). Payne fell from the third floor of his hotel balcony shortly after police received a phone call reporting an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” Officials found his room trashed, with various drug paraphernalia littered in the bathtub and across the floor. 

Then, throughout the night and into the morning, 142 memecoins were created in an attempt to exploit the news of the singer’s death.

Read more: Research finds less than 0.002% of Pump.fun memecoins succeed

The majority of the Payne memecoins claim to be tributes to the singer or to his dog. Others seem crass, basing themselves around the balcony he fell from and the room reportedly trashed beforehand.

This type of activity is common among memecoiners, who will create memecoins seconds after a news story is announced, or pick a random word to turn into a coin with the hopes of it trending.

For instance, when footage from the latest HBO documentary leaked and suggested former bitcoin developer Peter Todd was Satoshi Nakamoto, Pump.fun users instantly began creating memecoins based on Todd and his pet dog. Many of these coins made up pets that Todd didn’t even own. 

But as the passing of Payne shows, there’s no story too soon or too shocking for memecoiners looking to make a quick buck.

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The post Hundreds of Liam Payne memecoins created minutes after his death appeared first on Protos.

The crypto industry fell victim to confirmation bias this week in a sensational fake news story. According to the tall tale, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen gave an AI agent $50,000 of bitcoin, the AI launched a memecoin, and it rallied to a market capitalization of $225 million.

The story went viral likely because it confirmed every hope and fear of crypto-anarchists, libertarians, effective accelerationists, and memecoin traders. The story tapped into the global buzz about AI automatons and the potential of blockchain communities like Solana, decentralized finance, and memecoin platforms like Pump.fun. 

According to the narrative, the Andreessen-funded AI created the meme coin GOAT via Solana’s Pump.fun and advertised it to traders, sparking a rally that surpassed $150 million by Monday and $225 million by Tuesday.

The truth is far less stratospheric but no less interesting. 

The true story of GOAT and Truth Terminal

On July 9, 2024, Marc Andreessen did allocate approximately $50,000 of bitcoin to a wallet tweeted by Truth Terminal. As the world has watched Truth Terminal and its bitcoin wallet over the past three months, many wondered if the ‘AI’ would figure out a way to make more money.

After GOAT launched on Solana’s Pump.fun meme coin generator and Truth Terminal endorsed it, crypto traders applauded the supposed advent of AI-created meme coins.

However, that agent’s owner, polymath Andy Ayrey, has admitted that his ‘AI’ operates semi-autonomously and often relies on human discretion. Ayrey also admitted that neither he nor Truth Terminal created GOAT.

Ayrey’s AI-assisted social media account uses LLMs like Claude and other integrations. Ayrey, however, has personal control over Truth Terminal, modifies its code, and could terminate it at any moment.

The account began posting on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2024, sharing philosophical musings and stream-of-consciousness thoughts. It quickly attracted a following among effective accelerationism (e/acc) accounts, AI enthusiasts, and soon, crypto traders.

Read more: Fake news again! This time it’s Kamala Harris and ‘unrealized crypto gains’

Marc Andreessen cheers on AI and the meme coins

Andreessen engages with Truth Terminal subtextually, playing up its ‘autonomy’ with tongue-in-cheek engagement.

The VC magnate knew, of course, that he was donating to Ayrey — not an AI agent — when he issued his $50,000 grant. Furthermore, Ayrey, as the owner of the US assets, has legal obligations regarding his promotion of any securities or derivatives offerings, transactions with sanctioned entities, truth in advertising, and other public disclosure obligations.

In short, a VC invested in a human — not an automaton — and both men humorously played up a perfect storyline for social media. 

While acknowledging his role in curating the AI agent and addressing enough concerns to remain truthful, Ayrey brilliantly manages the Truth Terminal character and its seemingly robotic interactions with Andreessen, crypto traders, and the broader public.

That crypto traders were able to fool themselves into thinking an AI created a $225 million meme coin is a testament to Ayrey’s storytelling ability. The tale is a brilliant critique of the current state of social media and crypto: short attention spans, instant gratification, moonboyism, and relegated fact-checking.

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The post Marc Andreessen gave an AI agent $50,000 of bitcoin — it endorsed GOAT appeared first on Protos.

A young Pump.fun developer has apparently filmed himself performing oral sex on a stripper, shooting heroin, and taking fentanyl in an effort to raise the price of his newly launched coin, Stripper Trev Dev. 

Screenshots circulating on X (formerly Twitter) of the explicit stream also purport to show the dev — who goes by the name ‘Trevv online — shaving his own head and passing the stripper a suspicious jar that some users claimed was filled with urine.

Read more: Research finds less than 0.002% of Pump.fun memecoins succeed

However, there are already doubts about the legitimacy of the stream. Some X users suggested that Trevv’s Instagram account shows that the ‘stripper’ in the stream is in fact his girlfriend and it’s also believed that the supposed ‘heroin’ in the video was in fact hash, a form of cannabis. 

Following Trevv’s online exploits, the coin hit highs of $0.00123 but has since plummeted 98% to $0.00002. Its 24-hour volume stands at nearly $5.2 million and its market cap is currently just over $23,000.

Whether or not it will buck the trend revealed in recent research that less than 0.002% of Pump.fun tokens are ever able to reach a $1 million market capitalization remains to be seen.

Protos previously reported that when Pump.fun launched its livestream segment, it was flooded with porn, suicide threats, and nudity from its ‘devs.’

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The post Pump.fun dev literally eats ass to pump shitcoin on livestream appeared first on Protos.