The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)—the city-state’s financial services regulator—has told crypto companies to stop advertising their products to the public.
Digital payment token (DPT) companies, as they are described in Singapore, “should not portray the trading of DPTs [definition slug= “cryptocurrencies”]cryptocurrencies[/definition] in a manner that trivializes the high risks of trading in DPTs, and should not promote their DPT services in public areas in Singapore or through any other media directed at the general public in Singapore,” the MAS said.
“The public should not be encouraged to engage in the trading of DPTs,” the regulator added.
The upshot of this decision is that crypto companies may only promote their services on their own website, mobile applications, or official social media accounts.
Importantly, crypto companies have also been told not to engage with third parties like “social media influencers” to promote their services.
Last week, Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, and Paul Pierce were sued over Ethereum Max promotions they engaged in last year.
This is not the first time the Singaporean regulator has come down on the crypto industry—and it is also far from the first time crypto-related ads have come under fire.
Singapore, crypto, and advertising
Last year, Singapore’s MAS came to a head with crypto exchange Binance.
After confirming that the crypto exchange was not licensed in August 2021—and adding that a “significant number of similar firms failed to be licensed—the regulator placed Binance on the city-state’s Investor Alert List.
By December, Binance withdrew its application for a license.
But controversies surrounding crypto-related advertising have gone beyond Singapore’s borders.
In the United Kingdom, the Advertising Standards Authority has clamped down hard on the industry’s advertising efforts.
The ASA has banned crypto ads from Coinbase, Papa John’s, eToro, Crypto.com, and Arsenal FC in the last two months alone.
Source: https://decrypt.co/90525/singapore-regulator-clamps-down-crypto-advertising
