The FCA is consulting on the next step in regulating crypto-related activities following the Treasury laying draft legislation before Parliament to enable the new regulatory regime. The FCA’s proposals will affect all all firms who use or interact with regulated cryptoasset activities. The Treasury plans the changes to take effect in 2027.
The FCA is consulting in three separate papers.
The first paper consults on:
- standards that crypto trading platforms must meet – high level expectations for meeting threshold conditions as well as rules relating to access and operation of a UK CATP, mitigating the risks from retail access to a UK CATP, managing conflicts of interest and transparency and reporting requirements;
- requirements on all intermediaries providing broking or other services related to crypto – looking at general execution requirements and other dealing rules and how they should apply to crypto firms, eligibility and execution requirements, conflicts requirements, pre- and post-trade transparency requirements and high level expectations for settlement arrangements;
- risk disclosure when offering staking, including key disclosure requirements and agreement terms, some of which will require express prior consent;
- crypto lending and borrowing standards – including a relaxation of the originally proposed restriction on offering these services to retail clients and other changes following responses to its previous discussion paper, proposals on measures to raise consumer understanding, use of proprietary tokens, liquidity and counterparty risk, record-keeping requirements, creditworthiness and the link with consumer credit regulation, and margin calls and collateral; and
- whether the same rules that apply to traditional finance should apply to DeFi, including on operational resilience and financial crime prevention.
The second paper covers rules for listing cryptoassets and associated disclosure requirements and measures to stop market abuse in crypto markets. It addresses what it calls the A&D regime for public offers and admissions to trading on platforms, and MARC (a market abuse regime for cryptoassets), both of which will be introduced through the Designated Activities Regime.
The third paper covers prudential requirements for relevant firms. It builds on the two new sourcebooks, COREPRU and CRYPTOPRU that the FCA introduced in an earlier consultation which had focussed on stablecoin issuers and cryptoasset custodians, and now looks at the prudential requirements for firms involved in operating a qualifying cryptoasset trading platform, stkaing, arranging deals, and dealing as principal (including offering lending or borrowing products) or agent in qualifying cryptoassets. It looks at a permanent minimum requirement, K-factor requirements, concentration risk requirements, the overall risk assessment and public disclosure of prudential information.
Consultation on all proposals closes on 12 February 2026.