Why Are Crypto Ads Being Banned?
Alex CryptoGuardIn recent months, the cryptocurrency market has been affected by the decision of several large online platforms to ban all types of ads that contain different types of crypto related content. Advertising and publicity are essential to almost every type of company and business, and this decision is certainly affecting the cryptocurrency market from continuing to grow.
Earlier this month, Bitcoin, the most popular and well-known cryptocurrency fell 9% to below $8,000 dollars, and many experts attributed this most recent fall in value to the decision by Google and other influential online platforms to ban all types of cryptocurrency advertising.
What Digital Ad Platforms Banned Have Banned Crypto Ads
One of the first major online companies to ban crypto ads was Facebook. At the end of January of this year, the company went public with the decision to ban all sorts of crypto ads from their online platforms. About a month later in early March, the tech giant Google repeated this policy as they also created policies banning crypto ads, including initial coin offerings (ICOs), wallets, trading advice, market predictions, and more. Google will not begin to actively ban crypto ads until June of this year, though the policies are already in place.
Earlier this week, Twitter followed the steps of their main competitors by also blocking all crypto ads from showing up on Twitter feeds across the world. A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed yesterday that:
“we are committed to ensuring the safety of the Twitter community. As such, we have added a new policy for Twitter Ads relating to cryptocurrency. Under this new policy, the advertisement of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales will be prohibited globally. We will continue to iterate and improve upon this policy as the industry evolves.”
Snapchat is yet another well-known online platform that is banning crypto ads as well.
Why Are the Major Tech Companies Banning Crypto Ads?
The parent company of Google, Alphabet, makes enormous amount of money from online advertising, and they are obviously concerned about protecting the image of safety and security on their online platforms.
Google recently released a “trust and safety” report on the advertising spaces they offer, and the decision to ban crypto ads might very well stem from a company concern about the perceived safety of investing in cryptocurrency due to the volatility of the market and the high number of unregulated ICOs popping up around the internet.
Google, along with Facebook and Twitter, actively monitor the ads that are placed on their online platforms as a way to supposedly protect users from fraud, scams, and other schemes that often fill the internet. While cryptocurrencies have proven to be a legitimate investment opportunity for millions of people, the fact that much of the market is unregulated by government institutions has been one of the leading motivations for Google, Facebook, and Twitter to ban any and all crypto ads on their online platforms.
What are the Potential Effects of This Ban?
In the short term, the news of the ban of crypto ads will most likely negatively affect the crypto market. The media tends to dramatize any new announcement, and given the popularity of cryptocurrencies in the news during the past months, the media attention to these bans should cause a dip in the market value of many types of cryptocurrencies. The current dip in Bitcoin´s value certainly seems to confirm this short-term effect.
A longer-term negative effect that is possible is that several legitimate ICO offerings might find it difficult to get the publicity they need and to find funding for their projects. Nonetheless, one report shows that in 2018, over three billion dollars have already been raised for new ICOs. Despite the Facebook, Twitter, and Google banks, ICO offerings should continue to attract a wide network of investors and enthusiasts.
Lastly, though the ad bans will certainly make it more difficult for cryptocurrencies to gather large scale followings on the main social media channels, it should also strengthen new ways to get the word out related to ICOs and other cryptocurrency ads. Bounty programs or bounty campaigns are one such as way that many crypto businesses are spreading the word about what they offer.
Where Can You Still Advertise for Cryptocurrencies?
For the moment, there are still several online platforms and websites that allow cryptocurrency ads. Microsoft, which owns the major search engine “Bing” still allows for cryptocurrency ads. Instagram is another major social media company that also has not followed the precedent set by Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Snap is another website that allows cryptocurrency ads, though their official policy bans ads related to initial coin offerings (ICOs). Lastly, AOL and Yahoo, which are owned by Oath (Verizon´s umbrella company), states that they only allow ads and ICOs for certain companies.