FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Everyone Including Twitter Is Sick and Tired of Cryptocurrency Ads

Twitter follows Facebook, Reddit, and Google in banning ads for virtual currencies and ICOs.
Image: Shutterstock

On Monday Twitter confirmed to multiple outlets that the social network will ban some advertisements for cryptocurrencies and related products in the next 30 days.

After Reddit, Facebook, and finally Google all banned cryptocurrency advertising, rumors circulated last week that Twitter—a hub for the cryptocurrency community, and a cesspool of scammers—would follow suit with a ban. As the world waited for the social network to make its move, CEO Jack Dorsey said in an interview that Bitcoin will one day be a “single currency” for the world and the internet.

Apparently, global domination won’t require web ads. Twitter spokespeople confirmed to The Verge on Monday that the social network will ban all ads for cryptocurrency token sales and Initial Coin Offerings, largely unregulated crowdsales in which startups sell investors digital tokens in exchange for funds, usually to develop a platform for the tokens to be used on; sometimes, the promise of a platform is mostly a way to justify selling tokens that only become valuable once people buy them.

According to the Financial Times, the Twitter ban will also cover cryptocurrency exchanges—where virtual currencies and tokens are bought and sold—and wallet services. This choice follows Google and Facebook in banning cryptocurrency services that are not necessarily scams or even untoward, but are associated with an industry that has a whole lot of that going on all the time.

With Twitter joining its Silicon Valley peers, most of the major social networks and ad platforms on the web have now banned cryptocurrency ads. It remains to be seen how this will affect the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, or Monero, for example—virtual currencies that arguably don’t need advertising—versus tokens that launch with a crowd sale.

Maybe if a cryptocurrency or token needs a heavy marketing campaign, at this point, it’s not worth having around in the first place.