New guidance on crypto asset promotions from the FCA will categorise Bitcoin as a restricted mass market investment.
In preparing our latest policy document, we consulted across the industry. The prevailing view? That not only is this classification incorrect ab initio, but it is also likely to increase the risk of customer harm by driving UK customers to unregulated offshore exchanges, which are less likely to be compliant with UK rules.
Bitcoin may be described in many ways, but a ‘restricted mass market investment’ is not one of them. It is a digital bearer asset with no counterparty risk; it is a free and open-source payment protocol that has, via its Layer 2 protocols, a transaction throughput far in excess of Visa and Mastercard combined; it is a permissionless money that no government can censor, debase or dilute, and with whose monetary policy no central bank can interfere.
These new regulations, including a categorisation that the industry has consistently advised against, may inadvertently increase those very risks that the rules are intended to mitigate.
https://www.bitcoinpolicy.uk/post/bpuk-response-to-fca-guidance-consultation-gc23-1
fnew /
npub1wl…dznlx
2023-08-07 12:46:42
Author Public Key
npub1wl39ydk5rpecvtrzhq67afl9ykn2ty2xdxdkfmyan0rss3f3ma5sndznlxPublished at
2023-08-07 12:46:42Event JSON
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"content": "New guidance on crypto asset promotions from the FCA will categorise Bitcoin as a restricted mass market investment.\n\nIn preparing our latest policy document, we consulted across the industry. The prevailing view? That not only is this classification incorrect ab initio, but it is also likely to increase the risk of customer harm by driving UK customers to unregulated offshore exchanges, which are less likely to be compliant with UK rules.\nBitcoin may be described in many ways, but a ‘restricted mass market investment’ is not one of them. It is a digital bearer asset with no counterparty risk; it is a free and open-source payment protocol that has, via its Layer 2 protocols, a transaction throughput far in excess of Visa and Mastercard combined; it is a permissionless money that no government can censor, debase or dilute, and with whose monetary policy no central bank can interfere.\n\nThese new regulations, including a categorisation that the industry has consistently advised against, may inadvertently increase those very risks that the rules are intended to mitigate.\n\nhttps://www.bitcoinpolicy.uk/post/bpuk-response-to-fca-guidance-consultation-gc23-1",
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}