UK Advertising Watchdog Bans Crypto Companies From Hosting Ads

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The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has decided to ban seven cryptocurrency advertisements on the grounds that they are misleading and “irresponsibly profit from the inexperience of consumers and so as not to illustrate the risk of the investment ”. The banned ads include those of the popular pizza chain Papa John’s Pizza, as well as a host of reputable crypto exchanges at Coinbase, Kraken, Etoro and Luno. The watchdog also declared crypto assets a “red alert priority”.

In addition to giving specific instructions to each business on what they must do to comply with their advertising standards in the future, the ASA has ordered all businesses to ensure that they no longer appear.

“The ads were aimed at a general audience and we considered that most of those who embarked on a pizza buying promotion were likely inexperienced in their understanding of cryptocurrencies and the risks involved in it.” , explained the watchdog of British advertising.

The ads included one from the Papa Johns pizza chain which promoted ‘free bitcoin worth £ 10 [roughly Rs. 1,017.44]”and” Save £ 15 [roughly Rs. 1,526.51] when you spend £ 30 [roughly Rs. 3,052.32] or more and get £ 10 [roughly Rs. 1,017.44] Luno’s Bitcoin Value! “on its website and Twitter. The authority examined whether the ads were irresponsible because they” took advantage of the inexperience or gullibility of consumers “and trivialized investment in the cryptography.

Papa John’s said the ads made no comment on investing in Bitcoin and that the promotion only offered a mechanism for customers to get free Bitcoin. They likened the promotion to a product discount or cashback offer, the only difference being that the savings were paid in Bitcoin.

But the ASA said that as part of the promotion, a consumer would have to create an account with Luno, a cryptocurrency exchange, which gives consumers the option to trade cryptocurrency with the promotional amount of Bitcoin or their own money.

Crypto exchange platform Coinbase also banned a paid advertisement on Facebook, which included text that said ‘£ 5 [roughly Rs. 508.83] in #Bitcoin in 2010 would be worth over £ 100,000 [roughly Rs. 1.01 crore] in January 2021. Don’t miss the next decade – get started on Coinbase today. “

Under the heading “coinbase”, a bullet list included text that read “Simple and easy to use”, “Never been hacked” and “Trusted”. Under the heading “The Competition”, a bullet list included text that read “Not Regulated”. At the bottom of the post, the text read “Buy bitcoin in 5 minutes for as little as £ 25 [roughly Rs. 2,543]”.

Coinbase said the announcement neither indicated nor implied that cryptocurrencies were an investment. He added that consumers were made aware of the risks involved through their user agreement and had the opportunity to discover more through the “Learn” pages on their website and through their “Earn” product. He explained that through these resources, they made it clear that cryptocurrencies are a high risk commodity.

Coinbase faced additional claims to mislead consumers because its ad referred to its competitors as “unregulated,” implying that Coinbase was regulated. ASA made a clear distinction between businesses that might be regulated by the FCA and cryptocurrency services that are not in general.

Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting Founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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