It’s going to be a little bit harder to pump and dump your beverage company stock by adding cryptocurrency terms to the business name, because tech companies are starting to crack down on shady blockchain ads. Facebook banned cryptocurrency ads in January, although some people took advantage of loopholes by misspelling terms (spelling Dogecoin with a zero instead of an O, for example). Now Google is following suit, announcing a ban on several types of financial ads, including ads for cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and cryptocurrency related products like cryptocurrency wallets and advice services. The ban will go into effect in June, and a Google spokesperson told Bloomberg they will be watching out for the loopholes Facebook missed.
We’ve made plenty of jokes about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (as has John Oliver), but they’re also incredibly volatile — bitcoin was 600 percent more volatile than gold in 2017 — and have the potential to burn through quite a few resources (monetary and environmental) in the irrational exuberance of, well, a certain type of person…
This New York Times article on cryptocurrency is 💯 pic.twitter.com/c4gxGQPMpf
— K. Thor Jensen 🐀🐀 (@kthorjensen) January 14, 2018
Lecturer: So that's how the versatility and security of Bitcoin will inevitably lead to it supplanting traditional fiat currencies, despite these minor corrections.
Subway worker: Look all I know is your card was declined. Do you have cash to cover these subs or not?
— AntiMacro (@AntiMacro) January 18, 2018
If you want to follow this IG thing I do with @primawesome @jakecurrie @DanWilbur @cole_mitchell I'd love that. And I'll kill you if you don't. https://t.co/aPaBdnwFLf pic.twitter.com/QxY4kQrLF6
— Jason Mustian (@jasonmustian) January 20, 2018
https://twitter.com/eringriffith/status/960914418400940035
Oh well, even with new limits on the availability of Google ads, we expect cryptocurrency to continue being “more efficient than Star Wars at extracting money from nerds.”