Crackdown on celebs who tout Bitcoin online

CELEBRITIES who encourage the public to plough their cash into Bitcoin could face legal action when the bubble bursts, campaigners have warned.

The online currency’s value has skyrocketed from around £750 at the start of the year to more than £8,200 today.

Along with similar so- called cryptocurrencies, it has been promoted by famous fans from business woman Baroness Mone, reality TV star Paris Hilton and football manager Harry Redknapp.

But regulators fear they have stoked a buying frenzy of the currencies which could see thousands of speculators lose their life savings when a crash finally comes.

The stars using social media to talk up the currencies have been warned by US authorities they could have broken the law if they were paid to do it and didn’t reveal that fact.

Former City minister Lord Myners warned: ‘Bitcoin is a bubble that will inevitably burst, innocent people will be hurt and those who were involved in this seduction will carry a heavy liability.

‘Those who were struck by the words of Harry Redknapp and others may come to regret that.’

Redknapp – who once said he did not know what an email was and had never sent a text message – tweeted in October that he was ‘ proper excited about mobile cryptocurrency’, adding: ‘I’m in, get involved!’ He was promoting Electroneum, a smaller rival online currency. Electroneum’s founders claimed Redknapp, 70, had not been paid for the endorsement but the former Tottenham Hotspur manager’s tweet has since disappeared.

Mone, 46, who founded the Ultimo lingerie brand, has also been promoting Bitcoin, after launching a business selling property in Dubai using the currency.

Another to post a now- deleted missive was Hilton, 36, who said she was ‘looking forward to participating’ in a Bitcoin fundraising, and added that her tweet was not an advertisement.

Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, 49, backed a Bitcoin fundraiser by the start-up Cobinhood, which had to apologise for giving secret discounts to a Twitter personality who backed it. One of the most prolific online currency backers is Floyd Mayweather, the 40-year- old fiveby weight world boxing champion.

The flurry of endorsements raised hackles at the powerful US Securities and Exchange Commission. It said celebrities who fail to announce they are getting paid could break antifraud rules and restrictions on promoting investments.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority declined to comment, but it is understood to be watching the situation closely.