UK’s FCA releases guidelines for Bitcoin and cryptoassets regulation

• Bitcoin, Ether and other similar assets remain FCA-unregulated.
• Security tokens behave like shares or debt instruments and have ownership rights.

The United Kingdom financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has released cryptocurrency guidelines. The released rules clarify the asset classes that fall under the FCA’s jurisdiction.

The majority of the guidelines released on today were originally proposed in a consultation paper dubbed CP19 back in January. The rules now have a definition for security tokens and fall under the category of “specified investments.” Moreover, security tokens behave like shares or debt instruments and have ownership rights.

According to the regulator:

“Any token that is not a security token, or an e-money token is unregulated. However, market participants should note certain activities that use tokens may nevertheless be regulated, for example, when used to facilitate regulated payments.”

The regulator also defined “exchange tokens,” which are assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These assets are not FCA-regulated but they must comply with anti-money laundering guidelines.

The Executive Director of FCA, Christopher Woodlard in a statement said:

“This is a small, complex and evolving market covering a broad range of activities. Today’s guidance will help clarify which cryptoasset activities fall inside our regulatory perimeter.”