AFL sponsor Crypto.com fined in United Kingdom

The United Kingdom Advertising Standard Authority has found Crypto.com, the official cryptocurrency partner of the Australian Football League, guilty of repeatedly breaching the country’s ad regulations.

The regulator accused the company as being “misleading” and “irresponsible” with their UK ads which could apply the blowtorch to the company down under.

Crypto.com has been running afoul of the ASA’s rules since the beginning of last year, with the regulator finding it guilty of taking advantage of “inexperience or credulity” of consumers with a number of its ads.

One of the ads told consumers to “buy Bitcoin with credit cards instantly”, thus recklessly encouraging them to invest in cryptocurrency using their credit card and not being explicit on the tax on cryptocurrency profits. 

Another ad that brought the ire of the ASA promised consumers of earnings “up to 8.5%”, which was misleading as there is not yet a basis to calculate the profits. The company responded by removing the ads and promising the regulator to do better on its oversight process. 

Again in December, the ASA found that the company failed to “illustrate the risk of investing in non-fungible tokens” and being unclear that fees would apply in one of its local ads. This time, Crypto.com fought the rulings on the basis that mentioning that fees would apply would “only confuse consumers. 

It is unclear if any of these ads ran in the Australian market as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has no case against the company. Singapore-based Crypto.com became the official partner of the AFL and AFLW in January 2022 after the duo signed an agreement spanning five years.

The ASIC is the body that regulates companies in Australia dealing with investments and other financial services. With the popularity of cryptocurrency and NFTs, the body called for a regulatory framework to better protect customers and guide companies dealing with such assets.

“Any firm that is misleading or deceptive in its advertising is breaking the law,” as Asic spokesperson said. 

When contacted for a statement, a Crypto.com spokesperson said the company was “trusted by more than 70 million customers worldwide and is the industry leader in regulatory compliance, security and privacy certifications”. 

The smearing of Crypto.com across the globe comes at a tough time for the AFL, with the expansion of the AFLW competition and the continued struggle of several legacy teams, compounding growing public resentment towards teams being sponsored by gambling companies, including online bookmakers.

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