Cryptocurrency startups are out of luck when it comes to mass emailing with one popular platform. MailChimp, the email marketing company, has announced that it is banning all emails about cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and blockchain in general from its marketing services.
Late last week, MailChimp announced a change in its policy in an email to its users. The updated policy states that the company cannot “continue to allow businesses involved in any aspect of the sale, transaction, exchange, storage, marketing or production of cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies, and any digital assets related to an Initial Coin Offering, to use MailChimp to facilitate or support any of those activities.”
The reasoning, according to an email obtained by Coindesk, is that too many of the new cryptocurrency startups popping up these days are later proven to be scams. Indeed, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating a number of ICOs — including those with ties to real estate — for their legitimacy.
“We made this decision to update our Acceptable Use Policy in order to protect the millions of businesses that use MailChimp for their marketing,” their email stated.
Even though the company previously restricted marketing of industries that have high levels of risk and abuse, many MailChimp users took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction with the decision.
“These incumbent organizations don’t realize their censorship actually helps cryptocurrency more than it hurts,” Twitter user Anthony Pompliano wrote in a since-deleted tweet.
Another user accused MailChimp of “hat[ing] blockchains.”
Since news about the change in policy broke, MailChimp clarified its policy in a tweet. The company said that while not all cryptocurrency discussion was forbidden, it was not allowing those “involved in the production, sale, exchange, storage, or marketing of cryptocurrencies” to advertise their products and services.
While that may be bad news for cryptocurrency entrepreneurs looking to spread the word about their products, there are of course other mass emailing tools that they can use instead.