FCA Bitcoin Influence Program – Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin News, Articles, Charts and Guides

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Here are the influencers. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced a £ 11million (GBP) campaign enlisting celebrities and influencers to warn the general public about the dangers of high-risk investments. The FCA is a UK financial regulator that was established in 2013. It operates independently from the UK government.

This is an interesting dynamic to consider given the context of public messaging around COVID-19 information. There are many examples of programs paying influencers on social media to spread specific messages related to COVID, such as obeying mask mandates, getting vaccinations, and more. Now, the point here isn’t which side of these people is factually correct or effective, it’s just about the messaging mechanisms, incentives, and trust people place in others. Say what you want about the societal health of influencer culture, the fact remains that it exists and a lot of people actually have some trust in the influencers they follow on social media. . This is why government programs of this type relating to COVID have been effective.

The FCA is now using this manual to launch a campaign of messages against “high risk” investments to the general public. During COVID lockdowns in 2020, there has been a massive surge in retail investors on platforms like Robinhood, especially among Millennials. The huge spike in unemployment, combined with unemployment benefits, stimulus payments and rent moratoriums, has left many people with excess money and a lot of free time. Many have invested in cryptocurrencies and “memes stocks”. It’s probably fair to assume that many of these people either lacked a fundamental understanding of the market or were just looking for short-term gains.

It can be argued that this was highly reckless behavior and that many of these new investors will end up hurting themselves financially. This is exactly what the FCA claims. In their announcement, the “high risk” investments that they will be broadcasting warning messages on specifically include mentions of cryptocurrencies and how many of these new retail investors’ first investments were in cryptocurrencies. For example, on Robinhood, much of the money invested in cryptocurrencies flowed into Dogecoin.

Now, it is not entirely unreasonable to warn people against actions that could be financially harmful to them. However, there is more context to this FCA campaign than that. They specifically mention in the announcement that 8.6 million people hold more than £ 10,000 in ‘assets for investing in cash’. Why? Because the FCA is trying to get 1/5 of these people directly over the next five years to start investing. So at the same time as they start paying social media influencers to spread warnings of “high risk” investments in order to ostensibly protect investors, they are actively trying to encourage more and more of the population to start investing their money instead of holding it in cash.

Do you see the conflict of interest and objectives here? Any investment involves risk and always will be. It seems much more likely to be an attempt by the FCA to control what people invest in rather than just shielding them from dangerous investments. Bitcoin is a huge potential threat to traditional markets. The more people invest in bitcoin, the more liquidity it withdraws from the traditional market. Every dollar I use to invest in bitcoin is a dollar that does not increase the value of the S&P 500. Every dollar I use to invest in bitcoin is a dollar that does not increase the price of real estate in certain places. All of these markets depend on new and younger money that continues to use them as intergenerational wealth is transferred, in addition to the sale of older money to facilitate retirement. I have to imagine that the proposition of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies absorbing this liquidity instead of the stock market, real estate, etc. is a pretty terrifying proposition for legacy institutions.

We are in the “this is how they fight us” phase. But it’s not going to get mean and obvious at first. It’s going to take the form of things like this program that financially incentivizes influencers who have built confidence in the wider population to spread the message “Bitcoin is bad, but the stock market is good.” They will try to pressure and twist people’s arms to give up their hard-earned money and put it on the market “not to miss the gains”. I don’t think they really care about people like that; they simply see this money as the fuel needed to keep the Ponzi scheme going, and just like America with regard to oil reserves, they will do whatever they can to acquire it.

Do not lose sight of this. It’s an information war coming and programs like this are one of the ways they are being fought.

This is a guest article by Shinobi. The opinions expressed are entirely theirs and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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