The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is to launch an £11 million ($15 million) marketing campaign to warn young people of the risks in investing in crypto.
- The move was announced by CEO Nikhil Rathi in a speech Thursday as part of a webinar on the FCA’s role as a proactive regulator.
- Citing recent research that found that almost 2.5 million Britons hold cryptoassets, Rathi highlighted the FCA’s concern that crypto holders are more likely to be younger and behaving “less rationally and more emotionally, egged on by anonymous and unaccountable social media influencers.”
- “This is a category of consumer that we are not used to engaging with, 18 to 30-year olds more likely to be drawn in by social media, ” Rathi said.
- He compared crypto to GameStop shares in January, when a trading frenzy driven by Reddit forum WallStreetBets saw the company’s stock soar as high as $483 from $18 at the end of 2020.
- The announcement of the campaign follows hard on the heels of its counterpart in the advertising industry planning to tighten its monitoring of the crypto market.
- The Advertising Standards Authority said July 9 it would be proactively looking for potentially misleading or irresponsible ads for crypto products, as opposed to its previous approach, which had been more reactive.
Source: Coindesk
