The finfluencer crackdown is here: what regulated crypto brands should do instead
The marketing strategy that leaned hard on finfluencer campaigns, paying for affiliate codes buried in YouTube descriptions and Instagram stories with a hashtag-ad so small it was practically invisible, was running a clock it did not know was ticking.
In April 2025, that clock ran out for a significant number of them. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) coordinated with international counterparts on a sweep targeting illegal financial promotions online, and the numbers were stark: the FCA alone removed or amended over 10,000 promotions in 2024, up sharply from previous years. Across Europe, national competent authorities operating under the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) framework have been tightening enforcement on social media promotions of crypto assets in step with the rollout of MiCA, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, which came into full effect for crypto asset service providers at the end of 2024.
What triggered enforcement was rarely sophisticated. Undisclosed paid partnerships. Affiliate codes presented as personal recommendations. Promotion of products the influencer had no authorisation to market. In several cases, influencers were promoting assets to retail audiences that carried no risk warnings whatsoever, which MiCA Article 7 requires explicitly for marketing communications directed at clients.
To be clear, this is not an outright ban. It is a crackdown and stronger enforcement of rules that, for the most part, already existed. The problem is that too many brands and creators had been operating as if those rules did not apply to them.
For regulated brands watching this, the temptation is to treat it as a compliance problem. It is not. It is a positioning opportunity.
What a compliant creator strategy actually looks like
Paid influence is not dead. It just has to be done properly, and most brands never did it properly in the first place.
Under MiCA and the FCA's financial promotion rules, the requirements are not