The Spanish securities regulator (CNMV) has warned investors against putting funds in crypto-related companies. Montserrat Martinez Parera, vice president of the organization, stated that lack of control is one of the causes of the downfall of the crypto exchange FTX, and that anyone looking at crypto as an investment must be very careful due to the lack of regulation in the area.

Spanish Securities Regulator CNMV Warns About Crypto-Related Investments

The Spanish securities regulator, the CNMV, has given its opinion about the recent downfall of FTX, one of the top three crypto exchanges at a worldwide level. At the inauguration of a public congress on Nov. 25, Montserrat Martinez Parera, vice president of the institution, stated that one of the things that allowed the events involving FTX to develop was a lack of control exerted by some countries.

Martinez Parera also warned investors against embarking on this kind of investment journey, and remarked that they should approach any crypto-related opportunity with extreme caution, given that this ecosystem still lacks regulation and control. She also called for interested parties to wait for MiCA, the cryptocurrency framework being discussed now in Europe, to be approved in order to have more clarity on how crypto asset investments will be regulated.

Investment Gamification and Advertising

Martinez Parera also criticized the way in which some platforms advertise their financial investment services, trying to make them look as if they were part of a game, especially in the cryptocurrency industry.

About this process, she explained:

We use the term gamification, but they are techniques more typical of video games, deep down there is an addiction component, and they promise you certain earnings in a very short space of time: we know that this is not sustainable and we have seen it in the field of crypto assets.

Martinez Perera’s criticism also tackles the way in which some of these cryptocurrency platforms purposely employ the help of influencers to advertise their services, often offering big yields to their audiences on platforms like Instagram or Twitter. She declared:

It amazes me when sometimes some ‘influencers,’ in a video of less than a minute, tell you how to get rich.

This has been the focus of the organization this year, with influencers such as Andres Iniesta, a national soccer player, being reprimanded by the regulatory body for his promotion of a cryptocurrency exchange to his fans. The CNMV established crypto promotion laws in January that forbid influencers with more than 100,000 followers from running a crypto-related advertisement campaign without informing the group about it ten days prior to its start.