Euromoney receives an email from Daniel Masters, executive chairman of CoinShares, a pioneer of exchange-traded products for investing in bitcoin and other cryptos, urging us to email the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Back in July, the UK regulator announced it was consulting on a proposed ban on the sale to retail investors of derivatives and exchange-traded notes referencing crypto assets.
The FCA considers these products ill-suited to retail consumers due to the underlying assets having no reliable basis for valuation; the extreme volatility in prices; the prevalence of market abuse and financial crime, including cyber theft, in the secondary market for cryptos; inadequate understanding by retail consumers and the lack of a clear investment need for products referencing them.
This strikes me as perfectly obvious.
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| Alex Batlin, Trustology |
But CoinShares reckons it will harm its business. It claims the FCA’s analysis of crypto assets and these associated instruments demonstrates a lack of understanding of their functionality and value and the motivations for investors to seek them out.
Masters, who years ago headed the global energy and trading business at JPMorgan, provides me with a pre-drafted reply to the FCA voicing my/his objections to the proposed ban and urges me to send it before early October.
