Crypto.com gets UK regulatory approval

Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of cryp­tocur­ren­cy Bit­coin are seen in this illus­tra­tion, August 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) — Sin­ga­pore-based cryp­tocur­ren­cy plat­form Crypto.com has reg­is­tered with Britain’s finan­cial ser­vices reg­u­la­tor, the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment on Wednesday.

Join­ing the Finan­cial Con­duct Author­i­ty’s (FCA) reg­is­ter means that Crypto.com has approval to offer cryp­to asset ser­vices and prod­ucts to cus­tomers in the Unit­ed King­dom in com­pli­ance with anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and “ter­ror­ist” financ­ing rules.

The Unit­ed King­dom is a “strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant mar­ket for us”, said Crypto.com CEO Kris Marsza­lek, cit­ing an increase in cryp­to adop­tion in the coun­try and the gov­ern­men­t’s agen­da to make Britain a hub for cryp­to assets. read more 

As author­i­ties around the world are grap­pling with how to reg­u­late the cryp­to sec­tor, firms are rac­ing to reg­is­ter with finan­cial watchdogs.

Cryp­tocur­ren­cies are not reg­u­lat­ed in the Unit­ed King­dom and there is no com­pen­sa­tion for con­sumers who lose their dig­i­tal assets.

The FCA has pre­vi­ous­ly faced a back­lash in the cryp­to sec­tor after turn­ing down reg­is­tra­tion appli­ca­tions from scores of cryp­to com­pa­nies. read more 

Last month the watch­dog said it would always be “hawk­ish around con­sumer pro­tec­tion” when it comes to cryp­to. read more 

More than a tril­lion dol­lars has been wiped off the glob­al cryp­tocur­ren­cy mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion so far in 2022, accord­ing to CoinGecko data, as major cen­tral banks have raised inter­est rates, prompt­ing investors to ditch riski­er assets.

Crypto.com, which has 50 mil­lion cus­tomers glob­al­ly, reg­is­tered in South Korea last week and in Italy in July.

Report­ing by Eliz­a­beth How­croft, edit­ing by Sinead Cruise and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

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