Crypto Influencers’ Judgement Day. Time for Omar Bham’s Cat to Get Out of The Bag Hype Police Follow Mar 4 · 13 min read

It was December 23rd, the wonderful evening with an ineffable air of coming Christmas, when YouTube removed some of the crypto-related videos from several blockchain channels without a declaration of war.

“So My Channel Is Getting Attacked Right Now!”, — that was the battle cry from Tyler Swope of Chico Crypto, discovering his one week ban from the platform and his content being considered as violated to its users. “Well this is disconcerting”, — the owners of Calgary-based channel BTC Sessions seemed pretty distructed. “… it’s been 10 years of making videos, 200k+ subs, and 7M+ views”, — then tweeted one of the more suppressed bloggers Chris Dunn, finishing his marvelous track record with the most appropriate for such a scenario question: “WTF are you guys doing?!”

Whatever those guys from the YouTube team were doing, their “anti-crypto” activity provided an opportunity to make some buzz around the next “organized attack against cryptocurrency awareness”. Of course, accompanied with all these rhetorical arguments about censorship are the major blockchain influencers being poor victims of a centralized platform’s monopoly.

This is also the case for Omar Bham or Crypt0, as he is known within the community. Although his videos remained safe, he didn’t want to miss out on joining a bandwagon of those who suffered from YouTube’s outrage: “In case YouTube decides to delete my channel (or most of my videos), please follow me on LBRY”.

Cool, Omar, it’s nice that you decided to act first!💪🏼

But, honestly, it looks like you found the exact right time for a powerful endorsement for a project which is actually less popular than its counterparts like BLive or VibraVid.

FTC Guidelines and What They Imply

With the constantly growing market of social media influencers who have built their reputation drawing on their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic, it becomes more and more difficult to draw the line between personal opinions and paid advertising. Brands have already fallen in love with influencers as they appear to be one of the most effective tools for promoting their products.

The main sticking point here is disclosing sponsored content, which is a must for US audience, according to new Federal Trade Commission guidelines.

FTC, that is responsible for consumer protection, claims that you don’t have to reveal any sponsorship only in case when you just tell people about a product you bought and happen to like.

Despite the fact that InfluencerDB’s study identified the common awareness of obligation to mark paid content with hashtags #ad, #sponsored and #spon being the most widespread, there’s still a big concern if all the social media influencers play by the rules.

At the age of electronic devices, allowing contacts without connections, it’s much easier for us to lie to the disembodied persons. Unlike those who demonstrate transparency of their collaborations, so-called shills prefer their giving credibility relationship to remain a well-kept secret. This results in failure to trust the whole market while people start requiring from influencers to also disclose any history of personal product use as well as all the side effects it may cause.

However, there are many people who actively follow social media influencers and make purchases relying on their recommendations because they need to better orient in never-ending flow of information. A Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan once said: “The medium is the message”. So, the main question is not about the content, but about the person.

Should we trust what influencers tell us?

The answer is quite simple — trust but verify.

And that’s why I’m here.

Introducing our first protagonist

Not bad for an influencer without any relevant education in the field of Finance or Banking, huh?😏

Let me get back to Omar Bham aka Crypt0 who definitely caught my humble attention as a crypto YouTuber successfully running his channel with over 100 thousand subscribers.

Actually, Omar is an actor with a BFA in Theatre Performance which undoubtedly benefits him as a blogger who knows how to act in front of a camera so the audience believes him. But as we already know, a fundamental background of the sphere where the influencer performs is a key factor determining his credibility.

As we shall see later, the low level of industry knowledge based only on his personal experience and anti-establishment ideology turns out to be Crypt0’s Achilles heel.

As Omar writes in his Medium profile, he strives to expose any form of corruption along with truth, justice and freedom with #ViveLaRevolution hashtag following this list.

Great mission in fact if it is spread wisely and without blind fanaticism. Considering governments as useless and oppressive fascist organizations together with taxation being theft and imprisonment having no differences from kidnapping (which surprised me the most, by the way) this guy sounds like a real political radical inspired by the trendy anarchists’ thoughts about the absence of any State interference.

Don’t be so dramatic, boy, as these are the words of a person who keeps paying his bills in fiat. The point here is that now Omar takes cryptocurrency as an investment but not as currency itself. In simple terms, he uses it as a method to make the very money, which is government backed, so he could easily make his own living in Los Angeles and continue developing his YouTube channel to bring people his honest and sincere intentions.

Don’t get me wrong, because I don’t think it’s bad, but if Crypt0 is so keen on ideas and principles then he should remember the true purpose of blockchain technology. Did Satoshi invent Bitcoin as a means of improving incomes or as a perfect solution for borderless and intermediary free payments? And besides, promoting the former might be recognized as promoting more anti-crypto than crypto ideals which is a whole other revolution.

So, Omar, I haven’t seen all the positions you say you’re skilled in as a strong media and communication professional, but you’re obviously good at creating awkward social situations between people. Just because you leave behind some important home truths in order to get more public attention.

Getting the wrong sow by the ear

This is where we have a quick look back on YouTube’s “crypto-ban” situation. People always need someone to put the blame on instead of admitting this could be their own fault too. Every type of content requires a wise choice of context to be organically integrated, and if you deliberately post something that might somehow violate the ideological fundamentals of the platform you decided to use, then what’s so surprising about your content to be deleted?

However, as a true fellow of Chris Dunn, Omar couldn’t stay away and posted a video where he was trying to figure out what was going on. Yes, it’s still impossible to say for sure why most of the removed videos were affected by “Sale of Illegal or Regulated Goods” policy, which gives crypto enthusiasts an excuse to talk about one more link in the chain called “crypto-censorship”, but when it comes to “Harmful or dangerous content” regulations, there’s, indeed, more space for discussion.

And it has nothing to do with the industry.

We don’t need to go much further than the Dunn’s video “How I’m Investing Right Now” to see that it’s true. At first glance, nothing is unusual about enthusiastic Chris driving his car and telling the audience about his current crypto investing experience.

But what about his filming approach?

Is it really safe to make videos while driving a vehicle?

Focusing on a camera more than on a road isn’t a good example for drivers, especially the beginners, who may be interested in your content as well as in your lifestyle and daily habits.

So let’s be fair. You might object and advise me to take a deeper look into YouTube space where I will find millions of bloggers’ videos made in cars, but doing something potentially dangerous just because everyone is doing the same thing doesn’t mean it will never cause you any harm.

And I, in turn, would recommend Omar to do more thorough research on topics he’s publically covering to stay objective.

Supporting a friend is a big deal, but don’t forget about your subscribers who are searching for truth. Especially when they allegedly appreciate you for being among “the 1% of crypto influencers who express their opinions even when they’re unpopular”.