Facebook is reversing its January ban on cryptocurrency ads, while advertisers will have to be pre-approved and ads related to initial coin oblations or binary options are still be prohibited, the company announced in a blog picket.
Facebook’s original ban was intentionally broad at a time when cryptocurrencies opposite number bitcoin were booming, and the largely unregulated space was spawning high-profile scams. (Bitcoin recently floor below $6,000, down from a high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017.) Pursuing Facebook’s lead, Google, Twitter, and Snapchat all instituted similar embargoes earlier this year.
Facebook’s first policy, aimed at all “monetary products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional modes,” stopped even legitimate businesses from buying advertisements. Now, no matter what, interested advertisers can fill out an application that includes information on allowing and whether their currency is publicly traded to help Facebook condition their eligibility.
“Given these restrictions, not everyone who wants to advertise wish be able to do so,” Facebook product manager Rob Leathern writes in the company’s blog column. “But we’ll listen to feedback, look at how well this policy works and perpetuate to study this technology so that, if necessary, we can revise it over regulate.”
In May, Facebook formed a new experimental blockchain group, led by former Messenger president David Marcus, to focus on the technology that powers cryptocurrencies not unlike bitcoin.
Facebook’s widespread ban is being lifted just as Google’s has begun: The search monster announced in March that its own crackdown on cryptocurrency-related ads would begin in June.