The AFM (the authority on financial markets) released a warning on the dangers of influencers promoting Crypto. Great, I thought initially, these yokels with a 100 Euro camera and an internet connection have been misleading newcomers in the Crypto world for years, often leading them to scams or rug pulls while solid decent projects, or even Bitcoin or Ethereum were on the verge of skyrocketing. These scam promoting filth"influencers" often called finfluencers (yes I know it stands for 'financial', but let's be honest ;) are a serious problem in any category, but particularly damaging to Crypto because after a very negative first bad experience I can imagine people shying away from Crypto altogether, hence hampering a new generation's Crypto adaption. But after reading the report, I have to say I was rather shocked at the level of ignorance involving Crypto investments in 2021, by an institution who's the nation's AUTHORITY on the matter.
It states that the Netherlands alone has had half a million new Crypto investors in the past 2 years. Of the 500.000 new and often young investors, 50.000 started because of one of these "finfluencers". It then gives an example of someone who started investing in Crypto years ago and overnight lost 85% of his investment, he didn't say exactly how much money he lost or on what Cryptos specifically, and here's where the stupidity starts. Literally at no point did the report mention 1 single Crypto by name, while "The AFM has investigated 150 influencers, practically all 150 were promoting high-risk products such as Cryptocurrencies.....they are not licensed to give out advice and sometimes even profiting from it without full disclosure". Ok, so they were profiting from WHAT exactly? Is Bitcoin automatically sending them sats for every video they spit out? Is Vitalik clapping in excitement every time he finally sees an Ethereum video amongst the hundred thousands of shjtecoin videos out there?
Why not mention which Cryptos they were promoting? It seems to me that if you want to "warn people" of the dangers, you'd be a bit more specific on these type of details no? I'm not saying disclose the names and addresses of these finfluencers, I'm saying why not share what your research and subsequent reasons for concern are based upon? I can tell you a thousand things they're not based upon and which did not lose 85% value overnight: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Uniswap, Chainlink, Solana, Decentraland, Waves, Maker, Siacoin etc.
Seems to me that if you were really concerned for your citizens financial well being and wanted them to avoid scams like the example who lost 85% overnight you used as an example in your warning, you'd briefly talk about the basics of market cap, liquidity, volume and what makes it IMPOSSIBLE for an asset to suddenly drop to 0, which are all characteristics these scams finfluencers are promoting almost never have. Is this "ignorance" on the part of AFM or are they even in an official warning to their citizens, purposely trying to make all Crypto look equally shady and high risk? 🤔
