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Google to ban cryptocurrency advertising from June

by Mark Tyson on 14 March 2018, 14:31

Tags: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

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Google has announced an update to its financial services advertising policy. From June 2018 there will be a clampdown across Google advertising platforms with regard to the promotion of cryptocurrency, and other high-risk financial instruments such as spread betting and CFD services. The risk to users is that some of these financial services will not only allow you to lose the money that you have invested, it is possible that you could end up with large debts.

With regard to cryptocurrencies, Google will be banning promotional campaigns for initial coin offerings, Bitcoin exchanges, digital wallets used to store such assets, and cryptocurrency trading advice. Furthermore, products and services related to things in that list will also face the possibility of advertising bans/removal.

Google hasn't elaborated on the reasons behind the upcoming ban. However one can see that other financial services which can put your capital in considerable risk are also on Google's hit-list. The following products services will no longer have adverts served by Google:

  • Contracts for Difference: Known as CFDs for short, this financial instrument allows a person to make profit on movements of shares up or down. Speculators don't put up the capital to own the shares which CFDs are (typically) based upon and a small amount of money can be used therefore to hold a large position with a lot of risk.
  • Rolling spot forex: this is basically a CFD type instrument for Forex markets (betting on currency exchange rates)
  • Financial spread betting: an 'investor' will bet on movements in various financial markets. Using the FTSE 100 for an example, you might bet on it rising at £10 per point. Of course if this share index declines you end up losing £10 per point. So it's like gambling on a race but the race never ends.
  • Binary options and synonymous products: unlike in spread betting, binary options have a stated goal which will trigger a payoff/loss. With the FTSE 100 again as an example, a person might decide to put a stake on an offered binary option that the index will hit a certain level today. If it does then you win, if not you lose.

Many of the above have something in common - they are leveraged financial instruments, which means that you can lose much more money than you have deposited with the service provider.

In an interview with the BBC, crypto-currency sceptic David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50ft Blockchain, welcomed Google's policy adjustment. He explained that Google was targeting "the kinds of risky investments that verge on gambling." Gerard thinks crypto-currency trading, and some of the above financial instruments are OK for professional investors but Google's ads currently target ordinary people, which is a problem.



HEXUS Forums :: 31 Comments

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Step in the right direction.

Its worrying how much electricity crypto currency miners are now using.

The sooner they stop the better.
As far as I can tell most of the cryptocurrencies and related services that have been most aggressive with their marketing fall into the scam/ponzi category anyway. There were cases recently where cryptocurrency Youtubers were warning about various scam coins on their channels while youtube was serving ads for those coins before the videos.
I'm still amazed cryptocurrency hasn't collapsed. It all just seems to rely too much on the algorithms not being broken. At the rate traditional and quantum CPUs power is growing plus the chance the algorithm could be flawed, the whole thing feels like a tower of cards…
cheesemp
I'm still amazed cryptocurrency hasn't collapsed. It all just seems to rely too much on the algorithms not being broken. At the rate traditional and quantum CPUs power is growing plus the chance the algorithm could be flawed, the whole thing feels like a tower of cards…

Quantum crypto could trash it, the other stuff is pretty much standard part of life in the crypto community. You can plot a graph of how computers have become more powerful over time, which makes the future pretty predictable there. Flaws in crypto systems tend to turn up as slight weaknesses rather than straight breaks, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Quantum computers will no doubt lead to quantum blockchains, then you won't be able to buy quantum gpus ;)
DanceswithUnix
Quantum crypto could trash it, the other stuff is pretty much standard part of life in the crypto community. You can plot a graph of how computers have become more powerful over time, which makes the future pretty predictable there. Flaws in crypto systems tend to turn up as slight weaknesses rather than straight breaks, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Quantum computers will no doubt lead to quantum blockchains, then you won't be able to buy quantum gpus ;)

No problem, the Terminators will be able to crack these simple cryptocurrency equations whilst bopping you on the back of the head so hard that your eyes literally pop out of your head at all the money.