Ben Armstrong is one of the most viewed crypto influencers on YouTube. In January of this year he decided to put an end to a commercial practice that he (like many other well-known influencers on social media) had done for years.
His channel, BitBoy Crypto, has close to 1.5 million subscribers. For years, Armstrong said that he accepted payments from crypto companies to promote your new products to your audience of subscribers. And he says that now he regrets that while he was making money, this practice led to some “painful” losses for his own viewers.
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100,000 euros per month in advertising for a scam project
In the fall of 2020, Armstrong announced his partnership with a cryptocurrency called DistX, calling it his most trusted coin and that DistX was seeking to stop crypto scams. In the end, the project itself ended up being a scam.
The project team left their investors stranded and disappeared after raising a lot of money. Now, the currency is down 99% and is valued at less than a cent. Armstrong earned more than $30,000 for each “endorsement” he gave to this project. In total, he could earn about 100,000 euros per month. Armstrong now says that he feels responsible for the losses suffered by his followers and that what he has earned has been returned to the swindled investors, according to him.
Despite having a channel to promote crypto investment projects, Armstrong says he is not a trained financial professional and many of the companies he has promoted have collapsed. Cryptocurrency companies such as Ethereum Yield, Cypherium and MYX Network lost value and he deleted promotional videos from his channel.
this is not an isolated case
Although Armstrong says that stopped accepting paid promotions in Januarythere are other influencers who continue to promote scams, according to a CNBC investigation.
A few months ago, an anonymous blockchain sleuth posted a list on Twitter naming 44 YouTube personalities promoting crypto projects and their prices for paid promotions. Some of these receive up to $65,000 for a single promotional video.
According to the investigation reveals, some influencers do not report that they are receiving a lot of money for promoting projects. It seems that many of the companies in the sector do not want influencers to tell their viewers that the content is sponsored.
In Spain, although since the arrival of social networks there has been a lot of covert advertising due to lack of regulation, things have started to change with new laws by the Ministry of Consumption. Especially when we talk about online betting advertising.
In Spain it has also happened
In Spain we also have many examples of these dangerous promotions or crypto scams. Like the case of the youtuber in Andorra arrested by the Police for an alleged pyramid scheme with courses on cryptocurrencies; we have the renowned IM Mastery Academy, which has been called the sect and pyramid scam that captures minors using cryptocurrencies as bait.
Another example is that of the influencers recognized by programs such as reality shows who commented, en masse, how they invested 30 euros to end up earning more than 1,000, because they were sharing a scam advertisement without questioning if it was true or the danger of this.
It should also be remembered that the soccer player Andrés Iniesta posted on his Twitter profile that he was learning how to start using cryptocurrencies with the Binance platform. And the National Securities Market Commission of Spain or CNMV did not like this gesture very much, which replied “Hello, @andresiniesta8, cryptoactives, being unregulated products, have some relevant risks. It is advisable to read the statement from @CNMV_MEDIOS on 9/2/2021 and thoroughly inform yourself before investing in them or recommending others to do so”.