Kim Kardashian’s Instagram Crypto Plug Draws Ire of U.K. Watchdog

Kim Kardashian may trick consumers into the “cryptobubble with delusions of quick riches.”

The U.K.’s financial regulator Charles Randell, called for regulators to have greater power in protecting consumers. He said that if you buy speculative crypto tokens “you should be prepared to lose all your money.”

He turned to Kardashian’s recent plug: “When she was recently paid to ask her 250 million Instagram followers to speculate on crypto tokens by ‘joining the Ethereum Max Community,’ it may have been the financial promotion with the single biggest audience reach in history.”

Kardashian disclosed that it was “a #AD,” but Randell said that she “didn’t have to disclose” that she was promoting “a speculative digital token created a month before by unknown developers –- one of hundreds of such tokens that fill the crypto-exchanges.”

“These tokens have only been around for a few years, so we haven’t seen what will happen over a full financial cycle,” Randell said. “We simply don’t know when or how this story will end, but –- as with any new speculation –- it may not end well.”

He asked for major platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, to join Google in not promoting ads for financial products unless they have been authorized by regulators.