Lionel Laurent, Columnist

All Those Silly Crypto Ads Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Viral economic narratives around crypto are designed to offer easy answers to a complicated world.

October 28, 2021 at 6:30 AM UTC

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the future of money and the future of Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for Reuters and Forbes.

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Photographer: Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images Europe

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The old adage of advertising is: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” When it comes to cryptocurrencies, the sizzle-to-steak ratio is off the charts.

A flurry of ads for new digital tokens on the London Tube are dangling “BIG” gains ahead. One promises to be the life-changing crypto for all those who “missed” out on Dogecoin, a Shiba Inu-themed memecoin that saw huge gains earlier this year as Covid-19’s third wave raged. Another ad for a trading app suggests anyone intimidated by the asset class should “sit back, relax” and let algorithms handle their trades.