Crypto Prices Plunge on Google Ad Ban News
Alphabet, the parent company to Google, announced today it would ban advertising for cryptocurrency and ICOs beginning in June. On Jan. 30, Facebook similarly announced it would ban advertisements for crypto and ICOs.
As these two companies effectively constitute a duopoly in online advertising, this news casts a shadow over the future of cryptocurrency and ICOs, and indeed, crypto prices are down nearly across the board on CoinMarketCap, with Bitcoin down 3.9% and Ethereum down 4.7% at press time.
Just how dominant are Google and Facebook in the ad world? The two companies grabbed more than 60% of online ad spend in 2017, according to eMarketer. And online is where the marketing dollars are flowing. Online ad spend passed that of traditional print spending in mid-2011, and topped television spending in mid-2016.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way, at least for now: Bloomberg reports that crypto advertisers are still sneaking through the duopoly’s filters by deliberately misspelling words. So maybe you can’t click an ad for “bitcoin” these days, but you can still click one for “b1tc01n,” and buy the dip!
