The famous crypto app Luno has been ordered by the UK advertising regulator to amend misleading ads that were displayed throughout London’s transportation network. According to them, they were misleading because they gave the impression that investing in Bitcoin was simple when in fact it’s complex and volatile.
Luno is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group which is a parent company for Coindesk.
Governments all over the world are seen to react strongly towards crypto. First, was Iran banning Bitcoin mining for a certain period of time. Then there is India that has been talking about the bans for quite some time. Even the United States is talking about cryptocurrency crackdowns and scrutiny. Now the UK has jumped on the bandwagon by banning crypto advertisements in order to limit people from buying crypto.
It is bizarre to see these governments so hesitant towards crypto at a time when it is gaining ground. There are big names like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk who have been seen talking about the positives of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general. Even though Musk has been kind of down on crypto he still understands why it is so important to have competing currencies. But it seems like the UK is in no mood for competing currencies and is happy with keeping just its own currency. By way of example, it’s similar to oil companies saying electric vehicles are too complex and dangerously prone to driving into other cars.
From the looks of it, it seems like the UK is not liking the idea and element of competition here.
However, the actual question is whether the standard is being evenly applied? Whether there are other investment products?
What the regulators basically said was that the investment might not go up forever and that is pretty much it. If this is the standard for something being complex and misleading as a result of that do they really need to reconsider. Does Robinhood advertise there or do any of these brokerage apps advertise there because they basically advertise themselves in exactly the same way? These apps do not advertise how volatile the underlying asset is, they are advertising the application that allows one to invest in it. And that application does ostensibly make it easy so it doesn’t really make it misleading after all. Even standard is where the actual question arises and what these regulators need to consider.
This is one of those stories where consumer protection, government consumer protection is so poorly equipped for the internet age. With Wallstreet bets and all sorts of meme coins, this has started to seem more pronounced.
Such steps speak of the disconnect between the present reality of the internet and meme finance moving online at a mass scale. These are just regulatory bodies poorly equipped and have no know-how of the meme culture.
