Five key takeaways from the official Indian crypto ads guideline

Published at: Feb. 23, 2022

The Advertising Stands Council of India (ASCI) released a set of 12 guidelines for promotions and advertisement of virtual digital assets (VDA), including cryptocurrencies, on Wednesday.

The chief advertising watchdog has developed the new guideline after extensive consultation with the stakeholders of the crypto ecosystem as well as the government, ASCI said. The advertising guidelines also mark the first legal framework related to the digital asset market in the country at a time when the government is yet to finalize the crypto bill.

The new crypto advertising framework is set to come into effect starting April 1, the same date when the infamous 30% tax on crypto is set to come into effect. Let us look at five key takeaways from the guidelines that would detainment to the future of content in advertisements of the crypto firms.

All crypto advertisements post-April 22 must add a disclaimer to explain crypto and NFT products are unregulated and "can be highly risky." The disclaimer must be shown in all dominant languages.It is not allowed to compare a crypto asset to the regulated assets in the ad.Crypto ads must refrain from using "currency," "securities," "custodian," and "depositories" while referring to their products or services.Crypto advertisements shouldn't portray their products as a solution to money problems in any way or form.Crypto advertisements talking about profitability must contain clear, accurate, sufficient and updated information.

The advertising council also specified print size for disclaimers and how it should be broadcasted via different social mediums. Siddharth Sogani, CEO of blockchain analytical firm Crebaco told Cointelegraph:

“This is a great move by the concerned regulators and it is always good to have disclaimers that offer better insight into the market rather than being propagated as “get rich quick scheme”.

Sogani went on to add that the new crypto advertisement guidelines also hint at better crypto frameworks in the future and show that the government is taking in the viewpoint of stakeholders to regulate better.

Aggressive crypto advertisements were the theme of Indian media for the majority of the last two quarters of 2021, owing to the bull market and Indian crypto exchanges seeing a great influx of new users. This led to the Delhi high court notifying government to formulate appropriate guidelines and disclaimers in July last year.