FCA issued 450 warnings to crypto firms in the final months of 2023
The FCA says it’s been in contact with firms that are not following the new guidelines
Ascannio/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority says it issued 450 warnings between October and December to firms promoting crypto illegally.
The FCA removed 35 apps from the App Store by the end of December, according to a press release on Wednesday.
Last year, the FCA instilled new guidelines to crack down on crypto promotions. The new rules impacted companies including Binance. Back in October, the FCA cracked down on Rebuilding Society, a named Binance partner.
At the time, the FCA said that it had targeted 146 crypto companies in warnings following the rules.
The regulatory body added Wednesday that it reviewed 44 crypto companies registered with the FCA.
Read more: FCA issues another warning to unregistered crypto firms as promotional rules take effect
“These reviews included websites, mobile apps, social media and advertising. We found significant levels of non-compliance with our rules,” the FCA said.
Firms have received feedback from the FCA which outlined the agency’s “concerns and asked them to take action to rectify the breaches and conduct full reviews of their promotions to ensure they are compliant with our rules.”
The FCA noted that there were several “themes” that came up, including the use of influencers to promote crypto firms, “generic” risk summaries, and small fonts on top of positioning that make risk warnings hard to read.
“We remain concerned that regulated firms are not doing enough to meet their own obligations when providing support services, such as payment services, to crypto firms that are illegally promoting to UK consumers, the FCA said.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
- Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
- Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
- The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
- Lightspeed: All things Solana.
- Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.
