Meta (Formerly Facebook) Relaxes Policy on Cryptocurrency Ads to Open Doors to More Advertisers

Meta, formerly Facebook, has expanded its terms and conditions for running crypto adverts on Facebook, providing companies and financial entities more headroom to market their digital asset products. The social media giant said it was implementing this expansion because the "cryptocurrency landscape has continued to mature and stabilise in recent years and has seen more government regulations that are setting clearer rules for their industry." Meta's revised eligibility criteria sees the number of regulatory licenses the platform accepts go up from 3 to 27, which will be good news for the crypto industry. Until now, advertisers could submit an application to run ads and include information such as any licenses they obtained, whether they are traded on a public stock exchange, and other relevant public backgrounds on their business.

After the new update, crypto exchanges and wallets will qualify to advertise on the platform if they possess just 1 of a potential 27 regulatory licenses. The updated list of eligible licenses is publicly available here.

"Going forward, we will be moving away from using a variety of signals to confirm eligibility and instead requiring one of these 27 licenses," says Facebook on a blog post announcing the big expansion in licenses. Advertisers who were previously approved will not be impacted by this change and the list of products and services that require pre-approval also won't change, Meta added

On its policy page, Meta now hosts details on which types of cryptocurrency products are allowed and are not allowed. For example, cryptocurrency exchanges and hardware and software for crypto mining are not allowed while blockchain-based products and services such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and tax services for cryptocurrencies are allowed. Meta on its blog post also acknowledged that there are currently no set and hard rules in the cryptocurrency space.

The change in ad rules pertaining to crypto is happening just as Meta's marquee crypto-related effort has been downsized. After unveiling plans to create a slew of new digital coins a few years ago, Facebook and its partners have had to dramatically trim their plans following an onslaught of regulatory and congressional scrutiny. Earlier this year, the company launched a pilot program for sending remittances using a rival, existing coin — a far cry from its initial ambitious plan. The project's creator, David Marcus, earlier this week announced that he is leaving the company.