India’s top cryptocurrency exchanges dished out more than $6 million in advertisements and other promotional activities for the ICC World Cup Cricket tournament 2021. According to information provided by Tam Sports, India’s first crypto exchange unicorn CoinDCX was the biggest spender of all. It spent a total of over $5 million in broadcasting at least seven times in a single match, across all channels.
Out of 50 matches, sources from the first 42 revealed that the crypto exchange accounted for a 4% share in the total ad volume. On the other hand, its competitor CoinSwitch Kuber‘s ad expenditure tallied more than $1 million in total along with another domestic crypto exchange WazirX, who spent anywhere between $500K to $800K.
Interestingly, the Indian crypto exchange’s latest ad ‘blitz’ for the major sporting event is the first of its kind in the country. As per sources from the media, TV commercials by these digital exchanges have increased significantly in the last month. These developments may seem to have attracted a lot of attention from the government and the financial regulators who had unanimously voiced concerns against such ‘misleading’ advertisements and called for stricter curbs on such marketing tactics.
The news comes after India’s PM Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting just two days ago wherein, he engaged in detailed discussion with regards to bringing about sound regulations for the burgeoning cryptocurrency sector. According to government sources, authorities were particularly alarmed by an advertisement that claimed that crypto investments in the country reached a massive 600k crore.
India’s legal course
Several sources point towards the probability that the Indian government may approach the Advertising Standards Council of India [ASCI] to bring greater transparency and ‘stricter statutory warnings to accompany ads on digital currencies or their trading platforms.’
At present, there aren’t any legal arrangements for cryptocurrencies. But the recently concluded meeting of the government indicates that a regulatory framework may finally come into shape by December this year. Despite concerns raised by the regulatory entities, there has been a major shift, as witnessed from the government’s latest stance to bring a ‘progressive and forward-looking’ law on the whole sector. Nevertheless, the 2021 bull run has propelled retail investments to rise significantly despite the regulatory ambiguity.