The Cryptoplatform has received a new set of rules from the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) for advertising virtual digital assets on February 23. Late last year, the industry had faced criticism from the government and was slated for false advertisements across print medium, television, and social networks.
There are shades that need to be addressed as the space is continuously growing. We will stay to work together with ASCI and other stakeholders to improve them further,” stated Ashish Singhal, Founder, and CEO, CoinSwitch.
Formerly, self-regulatory body ASCI directed that all advertisements for virtual digital assets should carry a prominent disclaimer stating, “Crypto products and NFTs are tolerant and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory alternative for any loss from such transactions.”
The guidelines require the disclaimer to be openly spoken for video ads and forbid the usage of words like ‘currency’, ‘securities’, ‘custodian’, and ‘depositories’. The advertisements are stripped from showing minors dealing with virtual digital assets.
Additionally, ads should not display virtual digital assets as a result of financial or personality problems, or other downsides and should not promise or guarantee an increase in profits in the future.
We approve the ASCI Guidelines because we sincerely think that the goal of this segment is to foster innovation while protecting their interests. The whole idea is centered on the knowledge of teaching people about this growing asset class.
As with any asset class investment, investors can place their confidence in institutions only after doing their due diligence,” said Nischal Shetty, founder of Crypto exchange platform WazirX.
Also, we expect additional regulatory transparency on the Indian Crypto landscape and will continue to stand by it, added Shetty.
ASCI has stated that these guidelines will be useful from April 1, 2022, and after April 15, all the previous advertisements must be removed from the public domain.
Meanwhile, the Cryptocurrency industry continues to face insecurity as the details of the coming Cryptocurrency Bill are still not identified and the government has planned a 30 percent penalty on gains from such virtual digital assets from the next financial year.
These guidelines were relatively essential. If you do not recognize the threat and start trading, you will lose your money. These guidelines will carry the precise set of people who will benefit the system to grow and moreover, this will support in building the trust in the industry, which is assured to aid in the long run.
Why they need to highlight the fact that virtual digital assets are free is there is no legal option available at the moment. So, anyone investing should be responsive that they are doing it factually at their own risk. These guidelines are trying to bring transparency to a legal place, or rather the lack of legal position, which already exists as of today,” Suri said.
The industry’s opinion is also that the guidelines will not take in a major change in the present momentum as these perform and disclaimers were already being followed.
Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO, and Co-founder at Unocoin said, “I don’t consider this will carry any main effect because these disclaimers are already used in our terms, conditions, advertisements, blog posts and have been exploiting this for a while. Now it will just become more constant”.
The guidelines can lack encouragement for a certain set of investors. Some were already aware of what these assets are. But those who were investing without enough knowledge may now be discouraged.