FCA orders crypto ATM operators in UK to shut down all machines now or face punishment

The Finan­cial Con­duct Author­i­ty has told the oper­a­tors of all 81 Bit­coin ATMs in the UK to shut the machines down imme­di­ate­ly, or face enforce­ment action.

“Cryp­to ATMs offer­ing cryp­toas­set exchange ser­vices in the UK must be reg­is­tered with us and com­ply with UK Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Reg­u­la­tions (MLR),” the FCA declared this afternoon.

“None of the cryp­toas­set firms reg­is­tered with us have been approved to offer cryp­to ATM ser­vices, mean­ing that any of them oper­at­ing in the UK are doing so ille­gal­ly and con­sumers should not be using them.”

The major­i­ty of the cryp­to cash dis­pensers in the UK are locat­ed with­in con­ve­nience stores and supermarkets.

The Upper Tri­bunal recent­ly ruled against Gidiplus – a firm offer­ing cryp­to ATM ser­vices – which want­ed to con­tin­ue trad­ing, pend­ing the Upper Tribunal’s deter­mi­na­tion of its appeal against the FCA refus­ing its appli­ca­tion for reg­is­tra­tion under the MLRs. The judge con­clud­ed there was a ‘lack of evi­dence as to how Gidiplus would under­take its busi­ness in a broad­ly com­pli­ant fashion’.

“We are con­cerned about cryp­to ATM machines oper­at­ing in the UK and will there­fore be con­tact­ing the oper­a­tors instruct­ing that the machines be shut down or face fur­ther action,” warned the authority.

“Since we pub­lished the list of unreg­is­tered cryp­to firms that may have been con­tin­u­ing to con­duct busi­ness, a recent assess­ment found that 110 are no longer operational.

“We reg­u­lar­ly warn con­sumers that cryp­toas­sets are unreg­u­lat­ed and high-risk which means peo­ple are very unlike­ly to have any pro­tec­tion if things go wrong, so peo­ple should be pre­pared to lose all their mon­ey if they choose to invest in them.”

Almost 34,000 cryp­to ATMs are ful­ly oper­a­tional across the globe, with more than half locat­ed in the US.