The Delhi High Court in India issued notices for standardized disclaimer on cryptocurrency advertisements. The SEBI and crypto exchanges have to issue guidelines for crypto exchanges advertising on national television, according to report on Wednesday.
he petitioners and lawyers, Ayush Shukla and Vikash Kumar solicited direction to SEBI to issue guidelines. It should mandate disclaimer text covering 80 % of the screen with voiceover read slowly for five seconds.
The petition also mentioned that WazirX, Coinswitch Kuber and CoinDCX are directly involved in crypto-asset exchanges currently operating in India. These are the companies advertising and drawing retail investors to trade and invest in crypto-assets. The exchanges, SEBI and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting have to schedule a meeting to discuss the matter in August.
The plea stated that currently, the ads run by these firms have smaller text lines than the standard size. It also states that “Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risk”. In advertisements the text is displayed for less than two seconds and there is no voice-over.
“An ordinary retail investor who views the audio-visual advertisement on television run by the firms involved on a regular basis, as well as on online websites like Youtube, may suffer immense losses as a result of thereof whilst on the other hand; having a disclaimer on screen after the end of the advertisement with voice over in English and Hindi (as may be appropriate) and correct placing and at least 80 percent coverage in terms of the size on the screen to be viewable and readable by the investor, may instill wisdom of researching and reading up on the risk profiles surrounding crypto-assets prior to investing his hard-earned money in digital assets not understood by him.” mentioned the plea
Also Read: Monsoon Session: Centre Omits Crypto Bill in The New List
The plea stated that Crypto must be treated the same as mutual funds to protect the investors who are unaware of its risk profile. If the guidelines are issued, it might be a sign of India moving away from the outright crypto ban. It is adopting a more lenient approach by regulating the industry.
