Crypto.com secures UK registration for ‘cryptoasset activities’

Dig­i­tal asset exchange Crypto.com has just been giv­en the green-light for “cer­tain cryp­toas­set activ­i­ties” in the Unit­ed King­dom, after receiv­ing reg­is­tra­tion con­fir­ma­tion from the Finan­cial Con­duct Author­i­ty (FCA) on Tuesday. 

Accord­ing to an Aug. 16 entry in the FCA’s Finan­cial Ser­vices Reg­is­ter, ‘FORIS DAX UK LIMITED’ has been reg­is­tered to con­duct “cer­tain cryp­toas­set activ­i­ties”, whilst also obtain­ing Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Reg­u­la­tion Status. 

FORIS DAX UK LIMITED is list­ed as the reg­is­tered UK trad­ing name for Crypto.com.

Details on the reg­is­tra­tion are scarce at the time of writ­ing and Crypto.com and the FCA are yet to com­ment on it, how­ev­er, the FCA web­site sug­gests that busi­ness­es car­ry­ing on cryp­to asset activ­i­ty in the UK must reg­is­ter to be com­pli­ant with mon­ey laun­der­ing, ter­ror­ist financ­ing and trans­fer of funds regulations. 

As defined by the FCA, cryp­to asset activ­i­ty includes exchang­ing cryp­to assets for mon­ey or mon­ey for cryp­to assets, or automat­ing a machine to do so, and exchang­ing cryp­to assets for cryp­to assets. 

On the oth­er hand, the FCA has also com­piled a list of 248 UK busi­ness­es that appear to be car­ry­ing on cryp­to asset activ­i­ty that is not reg­is­tered with the FCA for anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing purposes. 

Exist­ing busi­ness­es in the UK were required to be reg­is­tered with the FCA by 9 Jan­u­ary 2021 in order to con­tin­ue car­ry­ing on their busi­ness, with busi­ness­es that have applied but are still hav­ing their appli­ca­tions processed being grant­ed tem­po­rary registration. 

The FCA has enforce­ment pow­ers allow­ing it to inves­ti­gate and impose finan­cial penal­ties on com­pa­nies that are not in compliance.

Crypto.com, a Sin­ga­pore-based cryp­tocur­ren­cy exchange that oper­ates glob­al­ly with over 50 mil­lion users, has been pur­su­ing reg­u­la­to­ry mile­stones at break­neck speed as of late. 

The reg­is­tra­tion in the UK fol­lows pre­reg­is­tra­tion fil­ings for cryp­to trad­ing plat­forms seek­ing reg­u­la­to­ry approval in Cana­da on Mon­day and approval as a Vir­tu­al Asset Ser­vice Provider in the Cay­man islands on August 11.

On August 8 the exchange also obtained Vir­tu­al Asset Ser­vice Provider and Elec­tron­ic Finan­cial Trans­ac­tion Act reg­is­tra­tion in South Korea fol­low­ing the acqui­si­tion of pay­ment ser­vice provider ‘PnLink Co., Ltd.’, and vir­tu­al asset ser­vice provider ‘OK-BIT Co., Ltd.’.

With these and oth­er addi­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry mile­stones, Crypto.com appears to be push­ing to be regard­ed as a secure and trust­wor­thy exchange with­in the dig­i­tal asset mar­ket, and its CEO Kris Marsza­lek has been out­spo­ken regard­ing their progress.

https://t.co/pFc4Pz9nFR con­tin­ues build­ing on a strong foun­da­tion of reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance, pro­vid­ing a safe and trust­ed plat­form to Cana­di­an cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty https://t.co/yzWEp8r9f2

— Kris | Crypto.com (@kris) August 15, 2022