Just as more comment comes celebrating the arrival and hopeful success of crypto ETN sales in the UK, it appears that in fact there are no products available on the day.
“Today’s news that UK retail investors face yet another delay in accessing crypto ETNs is both embarrassing and entirely predictable,” says Laurent Kssis of CEC Capital.
“The FCA announced in August that the ban would lift on October 8th, yet here we are on launch day discovering that investors may have to wait nearly a week longer because the regulator only began accepting prospectuses on September 23rd—just two weeks before the supposed launch date.
“This is regulatory incompetence masquerading as consumer protection. The FCA has had since their June consultation to coordinate with the LSE on implementation details, yet they’re still ‘going back and forth’ on whether another exchange segment is needed. Meanwhile, bitcoin has surged to USD120,000 this year, and UK retail investors have been locked out of regulated exposure to these gains that their European and American counterparts have enjoyed freely.
“What makes this even more farcical is the complete lack of meaningful trading activity on the LSE. According to the exchange’s own data, crypto ETN volumes on the London Stock Exchange represent a pathetic 0.59 per cent of European crypto ETP trading—averaging just GBP624,000 per day. For context, European exchanges traded a record EUR26 billion in crypto ETNs in 2024 alone. The LSE is an irrelevant sideshow in the European crypto ETP market, yet the FCA insists on restricting UK retail investors to only LSE-listed products.
“The delay until at least October 13th—potentially longer depending on the FCA’s review process—is a microcosm of everything wrong with the UK’s approach to crypto regulation. The regulator talks about providing ‘choice’ and acknowledging market maturity yet delivers a chaotic rollout that leaves investors in limbo on an exchange with virtually no liquidity and confirms what many of us in the industry have long suspected: the FCA’s lifting of the ban is more about political optics than genuine market access.
“For those of us who witnessed the vibrant UK crypto ETN market before 2021, when products like XBT Provider were retail favourites on platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown—who have now announced they won’t even offer crypto ETNs until early next year—this incompetent rollout is particularly galling.”
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