New police raids on people trading crypto for cash raises a hard question about financial freedom

UK authorities have carried out their first coordinated operation against suspected illegal peer-to-peer crypto trading, sending a clear and simple message to the market: once a person turns crypto dealing into a business, the state expects names, checks, records, and accountability. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it worked with police and tax officials to visit eight London addresses linked to suspected illegal p2p crypto trading, issuing cease-and-desist letters at each site. Evidence gathered during the inspections is now supporting criminal investigations, according to the regulator, while Reuters reported that there are currently no FCA-registered peer-to-peer crypto traders in Britain. The legal side is fairly easy to understand. In the UK, an occasional person-to-person crypto trade isn’t the same as running a dealing desk, brokerage service, or informal exchange. The line is crossed when someone regularly exchanges crypto for money, arranges those exchanges, swaps one cryptoasset for another, or operates a machine that does the same thing “by way of business.” The FCA’s anti-money-laundering regime explicitly names “cryptoasset exchange providers,” including p2p providers, as firms that can fall inside the rules. A person who repeatedly buys and sells crypto for others, advertises a service, handles customer money, or acts as a recurring intermediary can’t describe the activity as informal. Under the UK’s Money Laundering Regulations, in-scope crypto businesses must register with the FCA before they begin operating, and the regulator says registration is a legal requirement. Related Reading UK’s FCA takes action against illegal crypto ATM operators The UK FCA said no crypto ATM operator was registered with it, making their operations illegal in the country. May 5, 2023 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo The reason is anti-money laundering. A registered crypto firm has to verify customers, monitor transactions, keep records, and report suspicious activity. These requirements are part of the financial system that makes it harder for stolen funds, sanctions evasion, fraud proceeds, and terrorist financing to move through apparently ordinary payments. For the FCA, an unregistered peer-to-peer desk creates the same basic risk as any other unregistered money-services business: it can turn dirty money into spendable value while leaving fewer names behind. There is also the issue of promotions. Since the UK extended its financial promotions regime to crypto, companies marketing crypto activity to UK consumers must use one of four permitted routes. These include communication by an authorized firm, approval by an authorized firm, communication by an FCA-registered crypto business under the relevant exemption, or another valid exemption. Promotions outside those routes breach section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act and are treated as a criminal offense. Having tax officials involved in the investigation just makes it more complicated. It doesn’t prove that each target had undeclared income or unpaid tax, but it shows how authorities see informal crypto services. A business that takes fees, earns spread, or generates gains through repeated dealing can create taxable income. If that business also avoids registration, customer checks, and clean accounting, enforcement turns into financial crime supervision, tax compliance, and consumer protection wrapped into one operation. The UK has already moved crypto inside the perimeter The UK has spent years pulling crypto from a semi-detached market into a rule-bound financial box. CryptoSlate has covered that process in several stages, from the FCA’s expanded reach over stablecoin issuers and custodians to the UK Treasury’s October 2027 deadline for a full cryptoasset regime under FSMA-style rules. Related Reading Stablecoin issuers and custodians in UK may be regulated like banks next FCA warns investors protections are coming but volatility won’t disappear. Sep 17, 2025 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo The country has also clarified that digital assets can be treated as a third category of personal property, giving courts a firmer basis for ownership, recovery, custody, and insolvency disputes. That legal recognition helps crypto owners when assets are stolen, or platforms fail, and makes crypto easier for regulators, lawyers, and courts to fit into existing enforcement systems. Recognition and restraint usually arrive together. The more the state accepts crypto as property, market infrastructure, payment technology, or collateral, the more it wants to know who's providing the service, who's responsible when something breaks, and who's checking whether criminal money is moving through the system. Bitcoin began as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and CryptoSlate’s Bitcoin page still describes it as a decentralized peer-to-peer network secured by cryptographic proof rather than trust in a central authority. Yet the market surrounding Bitcoin has changed so much t