France looks to ban influencers from promoting crypto products, projects

The French Nationwide Meeting’s Financial Affairs Committee agreed to ban influencers from promoting and selling unlicensed crypto merchandise and initiatives on social media.

The ban is a part of Invoice no. 790, which is the French authorities’s answer to combatting scams and “extra” perpetrated by way of influencers on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. It was submitted to the Nationwide Meeting by rapporteur Arthur Delaporte and Stéphane Vojetta.

Invoice 790 was adopted with a majority vote on March 22 and has handed the primary studying stage and can now go to the Meeting and Senate for assessment and voting.

De facto ban on all crypto promotion

As of March 22, not a single cryptocurrency firm is licensed by the French monetary regulator below the required article.

This basically means the invoice locations a de facto ban on French influencers from speaking about any cryptocurrency-related venture or firm. The transfer locations digital belongings below the identical regulatory umbrella as playing, prescribed drugs and aesthetic surgical procedure.

In keeping with the invoice, breaches of the brand new regulation will lead to jail time of as much as two years and €30,000 in fines. Moreover, influencers which might be discovered responsible is not going to be allowed to make use of social media or proceed their careers.

French influencers concerned in scams

A number of French social media personalities have come below fireplace just lately for quite a lot of issues from selling dodgy crypto initiatives to allegedly extra felony issues like masterminding crypto rug pulls and benefitting from scams.

In January, greater than 100 individuals filed a category motion lawsuit towards a French influencer couple dwelling in Dubai for selling crypto investments and buying and selling platforms that had been scams.

The lawsuit additional alleges that there are extra influencers who had been a part of the “ring” of scammers. The couple primarily operated on Instagram and their accounts have been suspended by Meta for the reason that lawsuit was filed, in accordance with a Euronews report on the time.

In the meantime, in 2022, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT revealed on-chain information that linked funds scammed in a rug pull to a well-known French influencer Laurent Correia.