Vigilance

Consob fines Fabrizio Corona €200,000: illegal offering of memecoin $CORONA without authorisation

The authority sanctioned Corona for unauthorised promotion of cryptocurrencies, with violations of the European regulation and blocking of related platforms.

26 January 2026Aggiornato il 26 gennaio 2026, ore 12:25

Fabrizio Corona durante la prima puntata della nuova stagione della trasmissione televisiva Belve, in onda su Rai Due, Roma 25 settembre 2023. ANSA/FABIO FRUSTACI

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Key points

4 March 2025: Consob bans memecoin Corona offer
Codacons: "Suspicious Corona Operations"

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Consob sanctioned Fabrizio Corona for EUR 200,000 because he 'made a public offer of crypto-assets, other than asset-linked tokens or e-money tokens, called "memecoin $CORONA", which are still exchangeable on the Raydium platform, in violation' of the EU crypto-asset regulation.

According to Consob, 'the $CORONA memecoin offer, made by Fabrizio Corona via the Telegram channel "officialcoronamemes" and the website "www.getcoronamemes.com", already blocked" by Consob on 4 March 2025, "was not initiated by a legal person as required by the applicable legislation, was not accompanied by the drafting of a White Paper compliant" with the legislation, "nor has Mr Corona notified Consob of a White Paper" complying with the same EU legislation (Micar).

4 March 2025: Consob bans memecoin offering Corona

On 4 March 2025, theConsob had ordered the termination of the abusive offer of crypto-assets called 'memecoin $CORONA' in the wake of the Commission's interventions in the crypto-asset sector under the powers granted by the European sector regulation (Micar).

Six sites through which cryptocurrency services were provided without the required authorisations from Micar were also blocked: 'Financial Space'; 'HTXcoin-az'; 'Stock Credit Wallet'; 'Paycraftv.top'/'Paycraftn.top'; 'CoinBank Exchange'.

Consob had also blacked out abusive financial brokerage sites: 'Capitalgates'; 'Tux'; 'AquillaFX'. In all, the statement goes on to say, eleven sites were blacked out this week.

Consob draws the attention of savers to the importance of using the utmost diligence in order to make investment choices in full awareness, adopting common sense behaviour, which is essential to safeguard one's savings, and recalls that on the www.consob.it website there is a section on the homepage entitled 'Occhio alle truffe!', where useful information is available to warn investors against abusive financial initiatives.

Codacons: "Suspicious Corona Operations"

The authority's measure of 4 March 2025 was triggered by a complaint from Codacons.

Through his social channels,Corona had promoted his cryptocurrency promising that, unlike others, it would last.

'In fact, the early stages of the cryptocurrency's launch were turbulent, with sharp fluctuations in value and accusations of market manipulation due to highly suspicious activity that took place in the minutes before its official publication,' the Codacons complaint read.

The fact that a wallet had purchased tokens before the address was published indicated access to confidential information, suggesting a case of insider trading.

The rapid selling of the tokens in the first few minutes of trading had led to a collapse in price, with subsequent investors finding themselves holding severely devalued assets, a dynamic typical of Pump & Dump schemes".