- The FCA and HTX, the exchange formerly known as Huobi, are reportedly in settlement talks over crypto promotions aimed at UK residents.
- The regulator’s claim rests on one purchase: an FCA employee bought crypto from a UK IP address, using a driving licence as identification.
- Nothing is settled yet, and either way, crypto held on any platform sits outside the UK’s two main compensation schemes.
You have probably never checked whether the exchange holding your coins is legally allowed to advertise to you in Britain. The FCA has, and according to a report picked up by Decrypt, it is now in settlement talks with HTX over promotions the regulator says were aimed at UK residents.
Whether a platform is allowed to market here isn’t a technicality that stays between lawyers. When these cases resolve, the usual result is that UK users find something changed: new sign-ups blocked, features switched off, or the app quietly no longer available. If your money is sitting there, that lands on you before it lands on anyone else.
And the protections you might assume are behind you aren’t. Crypto holdings are not covered by the UK’s deposit compensation scheme or the Financial Ombudsman, whatever the outcome of a case like this.
What the report says
The claim, as reported, is unusually simple for a financial regulator. An FCA employee opened an account and bought crypto from a UK IP address, using a driving licence as proof of identity. That is a test purchase, and it is designed to show one thing: that a UK resident could reach the service and transact on it.
Settlement talks are exactly that, talks. No finding has been published, and a settlement is not the same as a court ruling. HTX has not, at the time of writing, put out a detailed public response to the specifics. Treat the numbers and the outcome as unfinished.
Why the marketing is the offence, not the trade
This is the bit most coverage skips, and it changes how the story reads.
Since October 2023, cryptoassets have been inside the UK’s financial promotions regime. A financial promotion is any invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity: an advert, a landing page, an email, a sponsored post, a referral bonus. The rule is that a promotion aimed at UK consumers has to be made or approved by a firm the FCA has authorised, or communicated by a cryptoasset business registered with the FCA under the money laundering rules, or fit an exemption. There is no fourth option.
The regime also carries specific obligations. Clear risk warnings. A 24-hour cooling-off period for first-time customers. A ban on refer-a-friend incentives, the “invite a mate, you both get $20” mechanic that most exchanges used to run. Breaching the regime can be a criminal offence, carrying up to two years in prison.
So the alleged wrong here isn’t that someone in Britain bought a . It’s that the offer reached them at all.
What the FCA’s registered list actually tells you
The FCA keeps a register of cryptoasset businesses. It is worth understanding what being on it means, because the name suggests more than it delivers.
Registration is anti-money-laundering supervision. It means the FCA has checked a firm’s systems for spotting dirty money and verifying customers. It does not mean the regulator has approved the firm’s products, vetted its custody arrangements, or judged whether your coins are safe there. A registered firm may communicate its own promotions. That is the connection to this case.
The FCA also publishes a separate warning list of firms it believes are marketing to UK consumers without permission. Neither list is a quality rating. They tell you what a firm is allowed to do here, not how well it does it.
Where that leaves you as a holder
Here is the part that applies whether or not HTX settles.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the one that covers £85,000 per person if a UK bank fails, does not cover crypto. The Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles complaints against regulated firms, generally cannot take on a dispute about a crypto holding either. The FCA’s own line has been consistent since before this regime existed: if you buy crypto, be prepared to lose all the money you put in, and expect no recourse if things go wrong.
That is true of platforms with UK registration and platforms without it. The difference a permission makes is about advertising and supervision, not about a safety net underneath your balance.
What has tended to follow when an exchange comes under pressure over UK marketing is a narrowing of access rather than a shutdown: onboarding closed to new UK customers, certain products geo-blocked, an app pulled from the UK store, or in the sharper cases an account switched to withdrawal-only. None of that is a prediction about HTX. It is the pattern of the past two years, and it is the reason it’s worth knowing, in advance, that your withdrawal route works and your account details are current.
What to watch
Two things. Whether anything is published rather than agreed privately: settlements can end with a formal notice setting out what the FCA found, or with very little on the record. The first would tell UK readers a great deal about how hard this regime is being enforced. The second would tell them almost nothing.
And whether UK access to the platform changes before any announcement. Firms usually move first and explain later. A quiet change to what UK users can do is often the earliest signal that a case is close to resolving.