In October 2025, the FCA stressed that companies must hold the correct permissions and comply with strict marketing and consumer protection rules before offering crypto ETNs. Trading 212, one of Europe’s biggest online investment platforms, allowed UK retail customers to trade cryptocurrency-linked exchange-traded notes (ETNs) without having the required permission from the country’s financial regulator, according to the Financial Times. Crypto ETNs returned to the UK retail market in October 2025 after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reversed a ban imposed in 2021. The products, which track the price of digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), are structured as debentures and require specific regulatory approval to be sold to everyday investors. Still, Trading 212 offered crypto ETNs to retail clients without the required authorization until Monday, the Financial Times reported, citing the company’s entry on the FCA’s financial services register. The company reportedly applied for the additional permissio...
Former London Stock Exchange Group executive Sabina Liu will lead KuCoin EU’s MiCA-era expansion from Vienna, as the exchange pivots toward a compliance-first European strategy. KuCoin has appointed former London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) executive Sabina Liu to lead its European business, tasking her with steering the exchange’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) expansion from Vienna after securing a crypto asset service provider license in Austria. Liu, who will serve as managing director of KuCoin EU, previously ran KuCoin’s institutional business and also spent more than a decade at the LSEG working with global investment banks and cross-border trading clients, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph. Liu told Cointelegraph that securing a MiCA license was a “major milestone” that gave KuCoin a unified regulatory framework to serve a region with mature and diverse finance, increasing crypto use and “significant room” for further adoption across stablecoins, payments and wealth pr...