What would a TikTok ban mean for crypto?

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Last Updated on 16 March 2024 by CryptoTips.eu

In Europe, the war in Ukraine is still the biggest news of the day, but in the United States it is now both the presidential election later this year. And a possible ban of TikTok, the hyper-popular social media platform on which some 170 million Americans have an account.

The problem for digital coins is that videos about Bitcoin, Ether and Dogecoin get billions of views on Tiktok. What does it mean if that promotion disappears because of a ban?

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Senate decides if TikTok will be banned

The US Senate will decide next week whether to follow members of Congress and agree to a ban on TikTok. That social media platform is, together with Instagram, the most popular pastime for young people in the United States. However politicians are concerned about the data that Bytedance, the owner of Tiktok, hands over to the Chinese government.

According to some, especially Republican politicians, China knows far too much about the American youth and how they could be ‘triggered’ in the future. Tiktok is therefore given a choice: a ban on the app stores of all American smartphones or a forced sale to an American company. Due to the current valuation of TikTok, several companies will have to make a joint bid. Microsoft has already indicated that it is interested.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the rest of the social media top 10 seems almost universally ‘Western’, including Instagram, Facebook, X, Discord and WhatsApp. In addition to TikTok (China), there is also WeChat (China) and Telegram (originally Russia, now supposedly Dubai). Hence a possible ban could also have geopolitical repercussions.

Crypto and TikTok

Crypto is very popular on TikTok and is one of the driving forces to get young people interested in digital coins. For example, the #crypto hashtag had approximately 30 billion views for 4 million posts, and the 3 million posts about #bitcoin were seen 21 billion times. Ether, XRP and Dogecoin are also in the top 20 crypto hashtags on TikTok.

So if those views all disappear, it could cause a decline in interest among young people, but as it is currently mainly institutional investors who support the prices of the most important crypto coins, in my opinion the effect of a ban would be rather limited for the most important coins like Bitcoin and Ether.

However, the many memecoins that are being promoted by influencers on TikTok could take a serious hit in case of a ban. I think a ‘rug pull’ of some smaller coins (especially by influencers who hoped to push those small digital coins higher through their followers count) cannot be ruled out.

So beware of volatility if a ban is imposed.

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / jeroen@cryptotips.eu
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