Twitter is About to Make a Huge Cryptocurrency Rule Change

Twitter is about to ban a wide range of cryptocurrency advertisements as part of a wider crackdown in the technology industry, according to a Sunday report. The move would see the social network follow in the footsteps of Facebook and Google, whose recent rule announcements coincided with drops in the price of Bitcoin.

Sky News claims that the new policy will be introduced in the coming two weeks. The details are not finalized, but current plans would ban advertising initial coin offerings, wallets and token sales on Twitter worldwide. A further restriction may be placed on exchange advertisements, with limited exceptions.

It’s not the first tech firm to crack down on crypto ads. Facebook announced at the end of January that it would ban ads that promote certain financial services associated with deceptive promotional practices, singling out cryptocurrency in its rule change. Google announced last week that it would ban ads for cryptocurrencies and related content from June, news that coincided with a drop in the price of Bitcoin to below $9,000.

“The bans shouldn’t affect larger and more-established cryptocurrency businesses who already have name and brand recognition,” Trevor Gerszt, CEO of crypto investment service CoinIRA, tells Inverse. “They will only affect newer and smaller entrants, but even then there’s still so much growth that occurs because of word of mouth through sites such as Reddit that an ad ban isn’t the end of the world. In the long run we don’t believe that these ad bans will be permanent. Once regulation surrounding ICOs gets sorted out, we would expect to see these bans get lifted.”

At the time of writing, the market has not reacted negatively to suggestions of further rule changes. Bitcoin’s price was up 7.94 percent over the past 24 hours on cryptocurrency tracker CoinMarketCap, reaching a price of $8,331. All of the top 100 cryptocurrencies reported gains over the same period, with 34th-largest Status jumping the most at 35 percent.

While these crackdowns may seem like a negative reaction, some experts see them as a welcome attempt to bring cryptocurrency into mainstream regulation. Kyle Forkey, a cryptocurrency startup advisor and founder of a blockchain consulting group Ethmint, notes the Facebook rule changes could actually help improve trust in the market. A ban on ads pushing people to invest in risky initial coin offerings could tilt the market in favor of smart investors carefully considering options.

“It will be beneficial to the average investor and indirectly beneficial to crypto as a whole,” Forkey told Inverse in January. “The more we flush out these scammers, the better the ecosystem is going to handle it, so I’m all for it.”