UK Advertising Standards Authority has Upheld Complaint against BitMEX for Placing Bitcoin Ad
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has raised a complaint about a bitcoin advertisement placed by BitMEX (HDR Global Trading), Crypto derivatives exchange.
The promotion placed on January 3rd, 2019, apparently to celebrate the tenth commemoration of mining of the first block of bitcoin on a similar date in 2009, demonstrated a graph spread across over two pages, as indicated by the ASA. Furthermore, ASA concluded that readers of the advertisement were probably going to be misled about bitcoin’s stability and value lately.
Moreover, four complaints were received by ASA. Four complainants said that the advertisement, misrepresented the ROI (return on investment) challenged it was ambiguous. Two other complainants noted that the advertisement neglected to show the risk of the investment and it is misleading.
Hence, for these reasons, the ASA thought that the readers of the advertisement were probably going to be misleading about bitcoin’s stability and value as of late and in this way, any investments they may previously make would have yielded.
BitMEX said the advertisement was delivered to remember the tenth commemoration of the initial block mining on the Bitcoin blockchain on January 3rd, 2009, which incorporated on the first page of the footer of a national paper that read “Thanks Satoshi, we owe you one. Happy 10th Birthday, Bitcoin,” the words and the graph by it and it was an article filling a complete page composed by Arthur Hayes – the co-founder and CEO, of HDR Global Trading, titled “Two sides of the coin: the bifurcated near-future of money.”
BitMEX stated it was a P2P crypto product exchanging platform that provides leveraged agreements that purchased and sold Bitcoin, and its items presented the investors for price fluctuations in Bitcoin; moreover, the investor’s loss or gains will not directly depend on the value of Bitcoin when there is a rise or fall in its value.
BitMEX made it clear that all exchanges done in Bitcoin would need an individual client to possess their Bitcoin before they trade in BitMEX trade platform. They also noted that BitMEX had no concern in the value of the cryptocurrency.
Furthermore, ASA says the advertisement must not show up again in its present structure. The body revealed to HDR Global Trading Ltd, trading as BitMEX, to guarantee that financial data in their advertisements was set out in a manner that enabled it to be readily understood by the group of spectators being addressed and that the risks of ventures were clearly and adequately signposted.
