30s Summary

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning about Retardio, a Solana-based project with an NFT collection and associated memecoin. The warning is due to concerns that Retardio may be providing financial services without FCA approval. Users dealing with Retardio will not be protected by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme resulting in a potential loss of money if the firm fails. Despite the warning, Retardio appeared to dismiss the claims, issuing its own warning against the UK’s financial regulator.

Full Article

Hey there! If you’re in the UK, brace yourself. The Solana-based project Retardio, which you might be familiar with, has received a warning from the government’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It’s mainly because they believe Retardio could be offering or advertising financial services without their official green light.

The FCA laid out a notice on Dec. 16 cautioning folks about Retardio and advised everyone to only deal with FCA-approved companies for additional safety.

Just to give you a glimpse, Retardio has a Solana-based non-fungible token or NFT collection that has reportedly made a whopping $31 million in total sales, according to CryptoSlam. They also have a memecoin, Retardio, which is currently worth about $0.08 with a market cap of around $87 million, going by Dexscreener.

Moving on, the FCA highlighted that if you’re involved with Retardio, you won’t be able to avail the Financial Ombudsman Service, a platform that typically works on resolving complaints between customers and financial service businesses.

That also means that you won’t get any protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), a safety net that helps users when financial firms bite the dust. In simple words, the FCA stated: “If the firm goes under, you’d probably lose your money.”

They also reminded everyone to only deal with authorised companies because these authorised companies provide more protection to customers if something goes wrong. You can also check out the FCA registry to make sure the company you’re dealing with has the FCA’s permission to operate in the UK.

If you notice any unauthorised firms out there, make sure to let the FCA know.

In response to FCA’s warning, Retardio had a laugh and said they were “issuing a warning against the UK’s financial regulator.” It kinda suggests that they’re now discouraging their UK customers from using their services while pointing out the FCA’s move.

Just an interesting thought here – the Chairman of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu, said something about memecoins in an interview with Cointelegraph. He explained how memecoins can capture the value of a user’s attention, which is not the case with social platforms. According to him, in Web3, the market cap of memecoins reflects the value of the attention they receive, acting as a token for attention.