Bitcoin Price Tumbles After Twitter Bans Cryptocurrency Ads
Bitcoin prices cratered during the past 24 hours after tumbling Monday (March 26) following news that Twitter plans to ban cryptocurrency ads.
“We are committed to ensuring the safety of the Twitter community. As such, we have added a new policy for Twitter Ads relating to cryptocurrency,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNBC.
“Under this new policy, the advertisement of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales will be prohibited globally.”
The move follows a similar embargo by Google two weeks ago, and by Facebook three months earlier. In enacting its ban in January 2018, Facebook – which is ironically embroiled in a data breach scandal – cited the need to protect users from “deceptive and misleading advertising practices.”
The price of bitcoin hovered at $7,934 at 6:50 p.m. Eastern time on March 27, down 2.7 percent from 24 hours ago, but still above the low of $7,751 it breached earlier Tuesday.
Bitcoin’s high on Tuesday was $8,211, but there was a definite shift downward as the day progressed. Meanwhile, BTC trading volume swirled erratically in tandem with its jagged price movements.
But not all is doom and gloom in the crypto ecosystem, as the CBOE has urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds while voicing optimism about its future.
Twitter to ban cryptocurrency ads, joining Facebook, Google https://t.co/7tZCMecCGe pic.twitter.com/te94hVCBdQ
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) March 27, 2018
“Cboe encourages the Commission to approach Cryptocurrency ETPs [exchange-traded products] holistically and from the same perspective that it has historically approached commodity-related ETPs,” the derivatives exchange wrote in a letter to the SEC.
“The Commission should not stand in the way of such ETPs coming to market.”
CBOE president Chris Concannon said while the virtual currency market is relatively new, it is developing rapidly, and its trading volumes could soon be on par with those of other commodity futures at the time they were included in ETPs.
Concannon wrote, “Looking specifically to bitcoin, the nascent futures markets are developing quickly and, while the current bitcoin futures trading volumes on Cboe Futures Exchange and CME may not currently be sufficient to support ETPs seeking 100% long or short exposure to bitcoin, Cboe expects these volumes to continue to grow and in the near future reach levels comparable to those of other commodity futures products at the time that they were included in ETPs.
Despite the crypto ad bans enacted by Twitter, Google, and Facebook, Concannon reassured the SEC that the CBOE has taken “significant measures to detect and prevent manipulation in the bitcoin futures market.”
