Opinion, Coinbase, Politics, Advertising, UK Election, Opinion The crypto industry’s messaging and adverts often read like advocacy because crypto’s nature questions centralized control and trust, argues Paragon’s Conrad Young. 

Advertising in crypto has often tried to sell a revolution.

“If everything is fine, don’t change anything” says the latest Coinbase TV commercial, as Britain crumbles in the background. Larry David’s FTX ad compared crypto to the invention of the wheel, though his character wasn’t convinced.

But even campaigns that aren’t so provocative are still inseparable from the industry’s world view. A worldview which challenges the financial and societal norms we live by.

Crypto’s products raise questions around control, access and trust. And that’s why the industry’s messaging and adverts so often read like advocacy. This political worldview is also one of the reasons why the industry and its advertising has faced so much suppression over the years.

From its inception, the digital asset industry has positioned itself as an empowering and democratizing force. It has questioned centralized monetary policy, and proposed alternatives to how traditional financial systems operate. These are not neutral positions.

This threat to entrenched systems posed by the industry is one factor in why regulation around what digital asset companies can do or say has taken so long to develop. Even today when ads from crypto companies touch on those systemic critiques, some members of the public take offense and regulators get in the way of distribution.

Coinbase’s now-infamous UK ad, which takes the spirit of crypto advocacy to its logical and creative conclusion, is a perfect example. Its message, that crypto offers a potential answer to a broken economy, may not have mentioned a party or candidate, but it still made a strong claim about policy and pointed a finger at what isn’t working in modern day Britain.

Clearcast, the body which says yes or no to which ads can run on UK TV networks, disapproved the ad on the grounds that it “presented cryptocurrency as a potential solution to economic challenges, without sufficient evidence for this claim or any warnings about the potential volatility and risks”.

Yet even as crypto messaging faces rejection from regulators and broadcast platforms, major political actors, especially in the U.S., are beginning to embrace it.

Not despite its political tone, but because of it.

At a recent panel, Trump strategist Chris LaCivita and Democrat campaigner David Plouffe found rare agreement: crypto is now a political issue worth supporting. LaCivita called it a “classic growth issue,” opening doors to young and minority voters, while Plouffe warned:

“Tens of millions of Americans have a great desire to be a part of this. So as a politician, it’s very dangerous to say: we’re going to ignore you.”

Both LaCivita and Plouffe said crypto ownership has become such an important social issue that it can sway entire blocs of voters. Parties are taking notice, staking out positions and reshaping financial ecosystems when they win.

In a world where even the idea of a single-issue crypto voter is taken seriously by campaign strategists, how can anyone be surprised that the industry sounds political?

The argument over whether to treat advertising that touches on political issues differently has been raging for over a decade, ever since social media became a dominant force in modern American election cycles. What began as a concern about transparency in democratic campaigns has since evolved into a much broader question: who gets to speak, and on what terms, when the message challenges the status quo?

Regulators and distribution platforms often claim there’s a clear, technical line between political and non-political content. In practice, that’s not how it works. What counts as political often depends on the climate of the moment. Messaging that’s allowed one year may be blocked in the next as rules are changed by social media platforms or legislative bodies.

Take the EU’s incoming Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising Act as an example. This new rule which is set to come into force in October 2025 will tighten what’s considered political content, broadening the definition to include any ad that could influence public opinion on policy. In response to this, Meta and Google have already said they will end all political, electoral and social issue advertising in the EU when the rules come into force in October. This is a perfect example of a regulation that, while well-intentioned, could one day cause unfortunate roadblocks.

If crypto ads increasingly sound like political speech, it’s not a mistake. It’s a reflection of what the product actually represents, and online media platforms shouldn’t get in the way of that.

The future of the industry is one where digital assets become an ever more present part of our daily lives. As these technologies become more deeply entrenched, the alternatives they offer will only become more important to people. The sway of the ‘crypto-electorate’ in the U.S.’s 2024 election cycle will undoubtedly be replicated in other democracies across the world and more parties will make it a part of their policy platforms.

There will be more and more crypto ads that speak directly to the social issues the industry represents. This is something that should be expected, and embraced, not feared or suppressed. In order for innovations to have impact we need to allow their communications to be provocative, outspoken, and, by all means — political.

It is only then that we will be able to have open and honest conversations about what is broken in our current system, and how we may be able to fix it.

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