UK crypto financial promotions: two definitions, one name, and a route that closes
The UK cryptoasset authorisation regime does not start until 25 October 2027, the full commencement day fixed by reg. 1(2) of SI 2026/102. The financial promotions regime started nearly four years earlier and applies to firms that have no permission and are not applying for one. Firms preparing for the gateway routinely treat promotions as a 2027 problem. It is a today problem, and SI 2026/102 changes it in ways that are easy to miss.
What already applies
Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 restricts financial promotions. Qualifying cryptoassets were brought inside it by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023, SI 2023/612, which was made on 7 June 2023 and came into force four months later, on 8 October 2023. It inserted art. 73ZA into Part 6 of the Financial Promotion Order and added the definition of qualifying cryptoasset at Schedule 1, para. 26F.
The FCA sets out four lawful routes for communicating a cryptoasset promotion to UK consumers: the promotion is communicated by an FCA authorised person; it is made by an unauthorised person and approved by an authorised person; it is communicated by a cryptoasset business registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017; or it complies with an exemption in the Financial Promotion Order. A firm authorised only under the Electronic Money Regulations or the Payment Services Regulations cannot use the first two routes.
The conduct rules sit in COBS 4.12A, with the FCA's reasoning in PS23/6 and its guidance in FG23/3. Promotions must be fair, clear and not misleading, and must carry prescribed risk warnings and positive frictions, including a 24-hour cooling-off period. Those obligations are FCA rules rather than instrument text, and they are the part most often outsourced to a marketing agency that has never read them.
Two definitions, one name
This is the trap. "Qualifying cryptoasset" is a defined term in both regimes and the definitions are not the same.
- In the Financial Promotion Order, Schedule 1 para. 26F turns on the token being fungible and transferable, subject to exclusions for controlled investments, electronic money, fiat currency and certain limited-use tokens.
- In s.88F(2) as inserted by SI 2026/102, a qualifying cryptoasset must be (a) fungible, (b) transferable, (c) not solely a record of value or contractual rights, including rights in another cryptoasset, and (d) not excluded by s.88F(4).
Limb (c) has no counterpart in the promotions definition. A token can therefore be inside one perimeter and outside the other. If you have a scope memo that tests your tokens once and applies the result to both regimes, it is doing work it cannot do. Test twice, against both instruments, and record which test produced which answer.
The route that closes for you
The third FCA route — promotion by a cryptoasset business registered under the MLRs — is the one most unauthorised UK crypto firms rely on now. Regulation 48 of SI 2026/102 substitutes MLR 2017 reg. 54(1A) so that the FCA cryptoasset register covers only firms that are not authorised cryptoasset firms or specified investment cryptoasset firms. Authorised firms come off the register entirely.
For a firm that gets authorised this is harmless: it moves from route three to route one. For a firm that does not, the MLR register is where it stays, and the promotions route with it. What replaces registration for authorised firms is not a lighter obligation but a different one — the notification duty in new MLR reg. 56B, with its 28-day and 30-day clocks. Neither reg. 48 nor reg. 56B is a promotions provision, which is precisely why promotions plans miss them.
Promotions during run-off
A firm relying on the reg. 56 exemption after full commencement is not silenced. Regulation 60 rewrites s.21 so that financial promotions are permitted where necessary to perform a pre-existing contract. Read it with reg. 56(3)(b), which limits the exemption to what is necessary for the performance of a pre-existing contract and carried on for that purpose, and reg. 56(4), which defines a pre-existing contract by reference to the relevant day. Regulation 58 then imposes disclosure duties on the firm about its exempt status, its non-authorisation, and material changes to asset protection, dispute resolution and compensation. Those disclosures are communications, and they need to be drafted alongside the promotions material rather than after it.
One thing not yet settled
HM Treasury published a draft amending SI on 21 April 2026, with submissions closing on 22 May 2026. It had not been made as at 18 August 2026. Among other things it would insert art. 73ZAA into the Financial Promotion Order and create a new controlled activity 7ZA. Anyone finalising a stablecoin promotions strategy off SI 2026/102 alone is working from a perimeter the Treasury has already proposed to change. Check whether it has been made before you sign anything off.
The checklist behind this article
The UK gateway checklist covers the promotions interaction alongside the rest of the authorisation pack — each item cited to the article, regulation or policy statement behind it, every figure marked as instrument text or as FCA reporting of it, and the unmade amending SI flagged as open rather than assumed either way. USD 149, with the updated edition free as the position develops.
If you promote one token type through one channel, the checklist and a careful read of COBS 4.12A will get you there without help. If you are running promotions across tokens that fall differently under Schedule 1 para. 26F and s.88F(2), or relying on the MLR route while applying for authorisation, there is a 48-hour gap check.