Changpeng Zhao explained that word of mouth plays a more prominent role than advertisement in ramping up user adoption
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a recent interview shared by CNBC that he does not expect the increasing ad restrictions by regulators to impact the growth of crypto.
Zhao explained that it is only recently that crypto ads were embraced, given that word of mouth has been the dominant force behind crypto adoption. As such, he expects the demand for crypto to grow further, and the surging regulatory measures against the ads are evidence of this.
"Clampdown on crypto advertising is unlikely to have much of an effect on demand, as most of the crypto users come from word-of-mouth promotions anyway," he elucidated.
Ads haven't had a significant influence
He added that even the major advertisement platforms in Google and Facebook took a long time before allowing crypto ads on their platforms. Being the case, CZ contends advertisement has not played any significant role in crypto adoption over the years.
In recent days, regulators worldwide have increasingly become keen on defining the nature of crypto ads they allow in their jurisdictions.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore recently outlawed crypto advertisement in public settings. Spain's regulator, the CNMV, also changed policy to require influencers and their sponsors to provide a notice of intent at least ten days before a crypto ad is published.
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority, ASA, is reportedly pushing to establish a greater mandate over crypto, given the series of bans and warning it has issued to entities operating in the country. The ASA has banned crypto-related ads by Coinbase, Kraken, eToro, Papa Johns, and Arsenal Football Club for airing c0ntent that allegedly took advantage of user inexperience.
Crypto.com acknowledges hacking incident
Elsewhere, Crypto.com yesterday confirmed that it suffered a hacking incident resulting from a breach of the exchange's security systems earlier this week. Crypto.com explained that its risk monitoring systems first spotted suspicious activity Monday around 12:46 AM UTC.
A total of 483 users were affected by the hack in which withdrawals were initiated without undergoing the 2-factor authentication. This resulted in unauthorised withdrawals totalling 443.93 BTC, 4,836.26 ETH, and US$66,200.
After detecting the anomaly, the exchange paused all withdrawals to rectify the issue and was back up after about 13 to 14 hours. CEO of the exchange Kris Marszalek said that all affected customers were reimbursed so that no users suffered losses. He noted that given the size of the business, the reported figures are insignificant and did not indicate any particular risk to customers' holdings.
Further, Crypto.com says it has conducted a full infrastructure audit to beef up security on the platform. The exchange has also engaged external security firms to perform extra checks and improve threat detection.