A finfluencer is someone who talks about investing on social media and recommends individual products while doing so. Whether a crypto tip of that kind has been paid for shows up in three places: in the disclosure as advertising or a paid promotion, in affiliate links and discount codes that lead to one particular exchange, and in the pattern of the pitch, which works on urgency and peer pressure. How often that lands in Germany is something the financial regulator BaFin has had in hard numbers since October 1.

Of the 1,000 crypto investors assessed, roughly half pay attention to recommendations from finfluencers. Thirty percent have acted on them when investing. And around 40 percent were not aware that finfluencers are often paid for…