Cryptocurrency investment firm Crypto Bank Global has had two advertisements banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, following a challenge by Barclays Corporate Banking.
Crypto Bank Global, a trading style of Inside Access LLC, had been running a regional print advertising campaign, where the advertisements made a series of predictions about Bitcoin's likely performance in 2018.
Specifically, the text in the advert which stated "bitcoin to hit £30,000 in 2018" and that "there are more millionarie's [sic] being made from Bitcoin faster than anything in history."
Barclays questioned whether the advert met the advertising watchdog's requirements because it contained claims it considered misleading and because it didn't identify that bitcoin is an unregulated financial product.
In a ruling issued yesterday (11 October), the ASA agreed the advert had breached several parts of the Code of Advertising Practice.
Consequently, it banned the advert in question and told Crypto Bank Global to ensure future advertisements did not imply that the value of Bitcoin would increase significantly or that returns would be guaranteed.
A spokesman for the ASA stated: "We also told Crypto Bank Global to ensure that those ads also made clear that the value of Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrencies, could go down as well as up, and that it was an unregulated financial product."
When the ASA approached Inside Access, the company acknowledged receipt of the complaint, but failed to offer a substantive response.
FTAdviser.com approached Crypto Bank Global for a comment on the decision but could not reach the company by telephone or by email.
