Google Bans Crypto Ads

Following the lead of Facebook and several other high profile advertisers, Google decided to ban crypto ads across all platforms starting in June 2018. This includes ads relating to ICO’s, wallets, and trading advice. As a large company under significant government scrutiny, Google has chosen to get ahead of this issue and play it safe until government guidance on the status of cryptocurrencies becomes clear.

 

The doomsday narrative around the ban is overhyped.For one, a big driver behind the ban was to stop fraudulent projects and ICO’s from being able to reach the masses via Google. Phishing links, where a bad actor portrays themselves as legitimate, have run rampant in crypto. A good example of this was the recent Binance incident where someone created a URL that looked almost identical to the real thing - only with two small dots below two letters.

 

Some believe that this ban will hamper the growth of crypto, but this discredits the technology and the people working to innovate in this environment. As more and more projects flood the space, the returns to be had for the legitimate ones decrease because capital is more spread out. Crypto is due for some trimming of the fat, or less viable projects. Big, promising projects will hardly be affected by the Google ban.

 

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out for crypto-centric YouTube channels. As owner of YouTube, Google has broad influence over a large part of the crypto community. It’s important to keep in mind that this is all subject to change - Google may very well lift the ban upon receiving more clarity from the government.