India publishes new Crypto Advertising Guidelines for VDA products

The Advertising Stands Council of India or ASCI has recently published new structured guidelines for advertising related to virtual digital assets (VDA), which will be in effect from April 1. The regulator has also instructed all previous ads to be in compliance with the guidelines after April 15, 2022, or else they will be removed from the public domain.

India has issued the new guidelines amid several countries tightening their hands on crypto marketing and promotion.

Key guidelines by India on crypto marketing regulation

Here are a few key guidelines that India is introducing “to make consumers aware of the risks and ask them to proceed with caution,” as the Chairman of ASCI, Subhash Kamath, says.

• It has been compulsory for all the ads for VDA products and VDA exchanges to include given disclaimer in text or voice form as required:

“Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.”

• VDA products or services may not use the words “currency,” “custodian,” “securities,” and “depositories,” as investors in India may associate these terms with regulated products.
• Any asset that is regulated should not be compared with the VDA products.
• The cost or profitability of any VDA product should have clear, sufficient, accurate, and updated information.
• Every ad for VDA products should clearly give out the name and contact of the advertiser.
• There should be no minor or someone who appears to be minor involved in ads for VDA products.

Active regulators

India said that the new standards have been introduced after taking extensive consultations with major stakeholders, including the government and the experts in the VDA industry.

Regulators all over the world are taking strict steps to regulate crypto marketing. Europe, which is found to be the biggest crypto-economy in the world, has appointed Spain to bring crypto marketing regulations to the EU. In November last year, Finland had also decided to tighten local digital currency marketing with the U.K., also tightening their hands on crypto promotions.