The UK isn’t like other global crypto hotspots.
While retail customers can access most of the same crypto assets as those in Europe, Asia, and America, the way in which these tokens are promoted is tightly controlled.
This is thanks to the UK’s crypto financial promotions regime, which came into force in October 2023, instantly putting an end to shameless shilling of dubious tokens. But even blue chip crypto assets such as BTC and ETH must be marketed responsibly in the UK, which has made life hard for firms trying to crack the British market.
Go about promoting your products the wrong way, or using the wrong language, and your business risks falling afoul of UK regulators and specifically Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act.
But what exactly is Section 21 and what activities does it proscribe when it comes to crypto promotions? Let’s unpack it.
The rule that matters: Section 21
At the heart of the UK’s crypto financial promotions regime sits Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act. In short, Section 21 makes it unlawful for a business to communicate a financial promotion unless that communication is made or approved by an authorised person or falls within a specific exemption including FCA MLR-registered firms approving their own promotions.
And it’s this rule that catches many crypto firms off guard, having assumed that Section 21 only applies to regulated financial products. In reality, since cryptoassets were brought within the scope of the financial promotions regime many forms of crypto marketing are now captured by the same framework, with the FCA issuing over 1700 alerts, taking down over 900 scam crypto websites and over 50 apps in the first 18 months of extending the rules.
The result is that firms can find themselves breaching UK rules long before they begin offering services to customers. For example, a company may have no UK office and no UK legal entity. But if it’s actively promoting crypto products to UK customers without using a lawful route to market, it may still be in breach of the regime.
Many international firms have turned to ‘S21 approvers’ – authorised UK firms that sign off financial promotions – to comply with requirements. But firms should bear in mind that the S21 approver route for firms otherwise requiring their own authorisation will be closing when the UK crypto regime enters into force in October 2027, calling for its own business continuity planning.
What actually counts as a financial promotion?
While paid advertising is the most obvious form of financial promotion, the FCA’s interpretation is much broader. It deems a financial promotion to be any communication that invites or induces someone to engage in investment activity.
In practice, that can include such things as social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, referral programmes, email marketing, websites, mobile applications, promotional webinars, sponsored content, and even certain forms of educational material.
Something international firms also often miss: financial promotions requirements can be triggered by passive elements such as a ‘buy crypto’ button, regardless of whether this is being actively promoted or not. Fact is, if a UK customer is able to access and act on such an invitation, they are engaging with a specific type of financial promotion – a ‘direct offer financial promotion’ or DOFP – that triggers an additional layer of customer categorisation, appropriateness assessment and necessary cooling off period.
In FCA’s view, if the communication is encouraging customers to engage with a crypto product or service, it’s regarded as a promotion and thus requires review. Given how wide-ranging Section 21 is in its scope, it’s easy to see why many businesses concluded that their existing customer acquisition strategies no longer worked in the UK.
The promotions that are problematic
To avoid landing in the crosshairs of the FCA and risk facing enforcement action, a lot of crypto businesses resorted to geo-blocking, shutting UK customers out of their platform altogether.
You might assume that this drastic action, which has effectively rendered much of the global crypto landscape off-limits to customers, would be sufficient to ensure compliance with Section 21. In truth, this approach is only sufficient when it’s deployed in tandem with UK exclusion for all marketing campaigns.
If your site’s blocked to UK customers but they’re still being served advertisements for your service, the FCA may well view those communications as falling within its scope.
It’s a similar story with affiliate and influencer marketing. Here, a crypto business may have carefully reviewed its own website and promotional materials only to discover that affiliates are making exaggerated performance claims or using non-compliant messaging on social media.
It’s not just what your company says to UK customers that matters: it’s also what others operating as your affiliates are saying.
Why app stores have become a compliance battleground
One area that’s received increasing attention when it comes to UK crypto compliance is app distribution. That’s because when it comes to determining crypto access on a regional basis, app stores are a natural point of enforcement.
If a firm is unable to demonstrate compliance with UK financial promotions requirements, there’s a risk that the app may be rendered unavailable to UK customers. This naturally has significant commercial implications since mobile applications often represent the primary customer acquisition channel for retail crypto users.
In October 2025, for example, the FCA alleged that crypto exchange HTX illegally promoted cryptoasset services to UK customers in breach of the financial promotions regime. The regulator later sought injunctions and requested that app stores and social media platforms restrict access to HTX content in the UK.
For a crypto business considering UK expansion, therefore, compliance should be considered before app distribution rather than after it.
What successful firms are doing differently
The crypto firms operating successfully in the UK today typically treat financial promotions compliance as part of their market-entry strategy rather than as a marketing review exercise. Instead of asking whether a particular advertisement complies with FCA requirements, they began by pondering the optimum lawful route to market.
Suffice to say that achieving this hasn’t been easy, given the need to ensure that promotional communications are structured correctly and onboarding journeys meet UK standards. Due to the requirement to have robust compliance in place before campaigns are launched, a number of shrewd firms have adopted a phased entry strategy.
Rather than investing heavily in customer acquisition from day one, they establish compliant operational foundations first and scale marketing activity once those foundations are in place. The approach may be slower, but it reduces regulatory risk significantly.
Compliance is easier than remediation
The most expensive financial promotions mistakes rarely involve a single advertisement. Rather, they usually arise when firms build customer acquisition strategies around assumptions that later prove incorrect. By the time those issues are identified, it may be necessary to redesign your entire website or rebuild your onboarding process from scratch.
For this reason, successful UK market entrants increasingly view financial promotions compliance as a commercial enabler rather than a regulatory obstacle. Get it done and then you can get down to business without constantly fearing enforcement action.
Operating a crypto business in the UK isn’t easy. But for firms willing to put the work in, particularly in terms of building a strong compliance framework, the rewards justify the hard work.
Explore how Regulatory Enablement and Crypto Access could support your UK market entry journey. Prefer to speak to the team? Contact us here.
