Almost 200 crypto firms applied to register in the UK over the last year as global interest in bitcoin boomed

Almost 200 crypto firms applied to register in the UK over the last year as global interest in bitcoin boomed

Interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has jumped in the UK Eric Gaillard/Reuters

The UK’s watchdog received 199 applications from crypto firms in the year to January.

Bitcoin took off at the end of 2020 and hit a record high of above $50,000 on Tuesday.

The UK regulator said firms must register with it to deal with money laundering.

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Almost 200 cryptocurrency companies applied to register with the UK’s financial regulator over the 12 months, as interest in bitcoin and other digital tokens rose around the world, new figures have shown.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said 199 firms - from Bitcoin ATM operators to online exchanges - had applied to register with it in the year to January after the watchdog tightened its supervision of the sector.

Bitcoin has rocketed in recent days after Elon Musk’s Tesla announced it had snapped up $1.5 billion of the digital currency. More recently, Mastercard and BNY Mellon said they would start offering customers the chance to use cryptocurrencies, adding to the legitimacy of digital coins.

The bitcoin price hit a record high of above $50,000 on Tuesday, taking year-to-date gains to around 70%.

A rise in interest in cryptocurrencies from amateur and professional investors has caught the attention of regulators.

In 2020, the UK’s Treasury said crypto firms had to register with the FCA by January 2021 to ensure they comply with money-laundering regulations.

Figures seen by Insider show that the FCA received 199 applications over the year to January, with the new rules coming into force from January 10. Applications came from big financial names such as Fidelity and Revolut, as well as smaller companies based in Oxford and Glasgow.

Jonathan Rowland, chief executive of London-based bitcoin banking app Mode, told Insider the figures were simply a reflection of the “ongoing adoption of bitcoin and the growth in the audience worldwide.”

He said the UK is “very well-positioned” to take advantage of the bitcoin boom, with high demand from consumers and increasing interest from companies.

Britain’s financial regulator has granted temporary approval to 102 of the companies that applied until July, meaning they can keep serving clients. It has so far officially approved 3 separate firms: Gemini, Archax and Ziglu.

The FCA has sounded warnings about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, reminding potential buyers to be aware of their high volatility. Bitcoin fell below $4,000 in March 2020, and tumbled from above $19,000 in 2017 to below $3,500 just over a year later.

In January, the watchdog told consumers they could “lose all their money” due to the chance that bitcoin could plunge to next to zero.

Where Can Investors Go If India Bans Crypto? Here Are The Options

Investors could also choose to move their crypto assets to self-custody wallets or invest in P2P cryptocurrency-based lending models to reinvest their funds

Long-term crypto investors may still try and find ways to keep their crypto assets with themselves through wallets from offshore exchanges

In the event of a ban on crypto in India, the logical route for many would be to sell their assets but alternatives do exist

India could well ban Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with the passing of the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, in the parliament. According to some estimates, almost 7 Mn Indians hold $1 Bn worth of cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin being the most popular in the country.

Media reports suggest that the bill while banning the holding, mining and trading of cryptocurrencies, will give investors a three-to-six months transition period to exit. While the logical route for many would be to sell their assets, crypto hodlers aka those who are in it for the long haul may still try and find ways to keep their crypto assets with themselves.

Self-Custody Wallets Could Be A Safe Haven

Investors can choose to move their crypto assets to self-custody wallets, which are digital devices in the form of USB drives, micro SD cards or smart cards. These devices store the investors’ private Bitcoin key or keys. Some of the popular hardware wallets for storing bitcoins include Ledger, Trezor, SafePal and BitLox. Investors can choose to store their crypto assets in these wallets, and perhaps even send these wallets overseas to their friends or family if they’re worried about keeping their wallet in India in the event of a ban.

However, there is a catch here too. If the investor transfers their crypto assets to a hard drive or a pen drive via the wallet from an Indian crypto exchange, then regulatory authorities could track down these cryptocurrencies if they want to. This is because all Indian crypto exchanges follow KYC (know your customer) norms and require users to provide details of their PAN Cards for signing up.

There was also another case reported last month of a German programmer who had stored 7,002 bitcoins on an encrypted IronKey hard drive but then lost the password to the device, thus losing access to his crypto assets which would have been worth at least $220 Mn.

Can India Actually Track Crypto Investors?

It is unlikely that regulatory authorities will actively pursue the crypto trails of Indian investors. According to experts, the Indian government’s agencies don’t have the infrastructure to execute the ban.

Various stakeholders have suggested that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) can bring crypto exchanges under its purview and treat them at par with conventional stock exchanges. However, in 2018, SEBI had informed the Department of Economic Affairs that it wasn’t suited for the regulation of crypto-assets.

Given that the ban will be hard to enforce, it can be anticipated the passing of the bill which mandates a ban, would lead to the proliferation of a shadow economy, where negative use cases of crypto will flourish.

Another option for Indian investors in the event of a crypto ban here would be to transfer their crypto assets to their friends and family based abroad. However, once crypto assets are transferred to another user, the receiver will become the owner of those coins and could have to pay tax on those assets as well, as per the regulations for crypto in that country.

Bitcoin Scales $51,000 for the First Time Amid Crypto Fever

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The blowout rally in Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) continues. As I write this, the best-known and most-valuable cryptocurrency trades above $47,000, down modestly from an all-time high set on Thursday morning. Source: Shutterstock Bitcoin now has roughly tripled since November, and rallied more than 50% this year. And the optimism makes some sense. Notably, corporations are increasingly comfortable with adopting Bitcoin. BTC saw a big catalyst this week when Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) said it would buy $1.5 billion of the crypto. The electric vehicle giant follows earlier adopters like MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) and payment companies Square (NYSE:SQ) and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL).InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The run over the last four months continues what has been an incredible rally. Bitcoin only launched in 2009. It cleared $1 (yes, one dollar) for the first time almost exactly a decade ago. Give or take, BTC has appreciated 4,700,000% in ten years. There have been few assets in the history of mankind to show that kind of appreciation. Simply put, Bitcoin has created millionaires. But the rally hasn’t been without volatility. In fact, volatility and crashes both have been a key part of the Bitcoin experience. Many of those crashes started in environments similar to this one: when all seemed well, and further upside appeared almost guaranteed. That history suggests another reversal is almost certain to occur. That doesn’t mean investors need to rush to sell their BTC immediately, but at the least they should be on their guard. The History of Bitcoin Crashes For skeptics (and I remain one of them), early 2021 looks an awful lot like late 2017. 9 Meme Stocks That Social Media Won’t Shut Up About At that time, Bitcoin similarly was soaring. Bitcoin cleared $1,000 on New Year’s Day 2017. By December, it was over $18,000. $20,000 and beyond seemed guaranteed. Cryptos of all kinds were rallying. Initial coin offerings were all the rage. But as good as 2017 was, 2018 was nearly as bad. In U.S. dollars, Bitcoin had been halved by February. By the end of 2018, it was back below $4,000. As an article at the time noted, the 2018 decline was not the first huge drawdown the cryptocurrency had seen. Not even close. In 2012, BTC dropped 49% twice, with one of the declines a three-day, 57% punishment. Another three-day period the following year saw an incredible 83% plunge. On Nov. 19, 2013, BTC lost half its value. Later that month, it began a stretch of over a year in which it went from $1,163 to just $152.40. Even in 2017, a banner year, Bitcoin fell 30% or more five different times. And then there was the roughly 80% plunge that began toward the end of that year. Admittedly, of late the volatility has eased somewhat relative to early trading. Wider adoption and a larger investor base should continue that moderation going forward. Still, we’ve seen this before. Bitcoin can move north in a hurry, but it also can move, and has moved, south at roughly the same pace. Three Catalysts And there are a pair of catalysts that could trigger another decline in 2021. The first is simply the parabolic gains not just in BTC, but across asset classes. We’ve seen a number of stocks go crazy. That doesn’t just include miners like Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT) and Marathon Patent (NASDAQ:MARA). It even goes beyond the so-called “Reddit stocks” like GameStop (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC). Commodities have taken off. Even in cryptos, DogeCoin, which started as a joke, now has a market capitalization of $9 billion. There are going to be crashes elsewhere, whether in cryptos, stocks, or commodities. And those crashes may well read across to Bitcoin. Surely there is cross-ownership between Bitcoin and other ‘hot’ assets. Those owners that see losses elsewhere are likely to de-risk by converting BTC to USD. There’s also the regulatory environment. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly and publicly raised concerns about cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Certainly, Yellen can’t ban BTC trading and send its value to zero. But she can impact potentially bullish catalysts, like the long-awaited launch of an exchange-traded fund (which would need to be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). Finally, there’s the possibility that Bitcoin itself simply has run too far. It stands to reason that at least some of the incremental buyers since December are not diehard crypto adherents, who believe Bitcoin can disintermediate large financial institutions. They’re just joining in the fun. In modern trader parlance, there may be some “weak hands” that have jumped on board. They’re not necessarily the type to ride out volatility longer-term. The Case for Staying It bears repeating: these risks don’t mean an investor needs to rush to cash in their Bitcoin. In fact, for a couple of reasons, an investor can believe that both a) Bitcoin will crash again and b) Bitcoin still is worth owning right now. First, the crash may still be a long ways off — and more upside may follow. An analyst could have correctly predicted in early 2017 that BTC was going to crash within a year. A trader who listened to that advice still would have missed out on gains of at least 200%-plus. This rally doesn’t have to end immediately. Second, there’s a case that trying to time the crash (assuming it arrives) is a fool’s errand. Timing the stock market is a notoriously impossible strategy. Bitcoin’s history suggests it isn’t any different. Long-term bulls on Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) can reasonably argue that immense volatility simply is a fact of life, at least for now. But if the long-term bull case plays out, the ability to ride out that immense volatility will pay off, even if there’s some short-term pain along the way. Neither is an unreasonable argument. But crypto holders need to at least understand that we’ve been here before. Short-term bursts of optimism like we’re seeing now almost always are followed by a reversal. I don’t believe this time will be any different, though it remains to be seen how steep that reversal is, and from what point it begins. On the date of publication, Vince Martin did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. More From InvestorPlace Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next Potential Winner It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. #1 Play to Profit from Biden’s Presidency The post Bitcoin Is Going to Crash. The Big Question Is When appeared first on InvestorPlace.