Twitter may be about to ban cryptocurrency adverts

  20 March 2018    Read: 2328
Twitter may be about to ban cryptocurrency adverts

Twitter is reportedly about to join Google in banning cryptocurrencyadverts.

The social media site is "preparing to prohibit a range of cryptocurrency advertisements amid looming regulatory intervention in the sector", according to Sky News.

The company is expected to prohibit advertising for initial coin offerings, token sales and wallets in order to protect consumers from scams.

Google announced last week that it would be culling crypto-investment promotions from its search results from June as part of a crackdown on "deceptive content", a damning verdict on the emerging sector.

That decision led to a downward slump in the value of all but two of CoinMarketCap's top 50 digicoins, underlining the volatility of virtual currencies and their susceptibility to wild fluctuations.

Bitcoin, the original trailblazer, remains the market leader with a massive 44.9 per cent dominance, but it has suffered a rocky patch of late and is valued at $8,240 (£5,873) at the time of writing, according to Coinbase.

Considering bitcoin's value spiked at an all-time high of $19,850 (£14,214) before Christmas, its recent skid is noteworthy.

Facebook and Reddit have recently reached similar verdicts about advertising and the crypto-sector, a $352bn (£252bn) market comprised of over 1,500 types of coin.

The Bank of England, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the central banks of China, India and South Korea have all expressed disquiet about the unregulated nature of cryptocurrencies in recent months.

Those institutions were united in expressing concerns about the lack of consumer protection virtual coins offer and their value to criminals as a means of carrying out black market transactions anonymously.

A number of high-profile exchange heists - most recently that suffered by Binance in China - have further undermined the sector's reputation.

 

The Independent


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