The UK wants to become a hub for fintech. Adverts for obscure, dog-themed cryptos on the sides of London buses are not what ministers and regulators have in mind. Their plans to curb promotions and withhold compensation from aggrieved crypto investors are a pragmatic response.
A crackdown by the Treasury and Financial Conduct Authority should prevent new advertising of the kind that puffed Floki Inu tokens last year. The FCA is also grasping the nettle of crypto regulation. About time. Most crypto buyers typically and wrongly believe it has already done so.
The FCA’s sensible aim is to neutralise moral hazard by taking distinctly limited responsibility for overseeing these volatile assets. Regulated firms could only sell crypto assets to the wealthy and financially sophisticated. They are the few remaining retail investors to whom caveat emptor still really seems to apply in the UK.