Twitter Moves To Ban Crypto Ads (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Twitter is the latest social service to boot out cryptocurrency advertisers. The company told Reuters it will be launching a new policy this week to prohibit the advertising of token sales/initial coin offerings (ICOs), and crypto wallet services. Ads for cryptocurrency exchanges will also be banned -- with some limited exceptions. Facebook announced a ban in January, while Google said earlier this month that it will ban them from June. In a statement, the company said, "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."

Comments

"ICOs, token sales and crypto-wallet services".

[XXongo]

They're banning "initial coin offerings (ICOs), token sales and crypto-wallet services".

ICOs are, basically, scams right from the start: they are people saying "hey, give me money and I will give you a token that has collectable value because I say it does" (but probably not). Token sales may or may not be scams. Wallets shouldn't be scams per se, but I guess a lot of people advertising wallets may not include the fine print "this wallet has a backdoor so I can haz yr koinz.".

FWIW, the Reuters article under discussion is actually here. I don't know why the link in the article is to a reprint instead of to the article. https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Re:"ICOs, token sales and crypto-wallet services".

[SirSlud]

"Other than widespread acceptance of the NYSE?"

You say that as if it's a minor thing. Financial markets exist, and they are heavily regulated with lots of oversight. On occasion they fail, can be subject to (legal to illegal) manipulation, can host bad actors, but that's a far cry from "it's all the same shit".

Re:"ICOs, token sales and crypto-wallet services".

[war4peace]

The main difference is that the gold peddlers on TV are regulated, you can file a complaint if you get scammed, and they will be in deep shit. Much of this doesn't apply to ICOs because they are not asking for money, they're asking for cryptocurrency.
They say "here's a bullshit token we've conjured out of nothing, we say it's going to have some value, and we say its current value is X and will certainly grow, send us 1 ETH (Ethereum) minimum for Y tokens".
You basically send a virtual coin and receive some virtual tokens. None of this is properly covered by law because none of those cryptocurrencies have an intrinsic value or a value which is backed up by something. They're just funny money.

Disclaimer: I am a cryptocurrency believer, I think the cryptomarket will evolve and become part of our lives in a few years, but right now it's a Wild West and ICOs should be outright banned until they are properly covered by law.