FCA stops HTX's crypto promotions

The UK's financial promotion regime for crypto, tightened under the 2023 Financial Services and Markets Act rules, requires firms to register with the FCA or partner with an authorised entity before marketing to UK consumers. Many offshore exchanges ignored this after it took effect in October 2023. HTX, formerly Huobi and linked to Justin Sun, kept advertising to UK users without registering, prompting the FCA to sue in October 2025 after what it called repeated failures to engage.

UK residents holding HTX accounts cannot deposit fresh funds or open new accounts, though existing balances remain under the exchange's control rather than frozen by the court. Prospective UK users must now look to FCA-registered platforms such as Coinbase or Kraken's UK arms for onboarding. HTX loses a national customer base and any UK-directed marketing spend through October 2031, while compliant competitors gain the regulatory high ground the FCA is signalling it will enforce.

A settlement rather than a trial verdict means HTX avoids a court finding of wrongdoing while still accepting binding restrictions, a familiar regulatory shortcut that lets both sides claim a result without a precedent-setting judgment. The deeper tension is between a regulator's territorial reach and an exchange's global, borderless design: HTX can still serve customers everywhere except Britain, exposing how national promotion rules bite on marketing, not on the underlying service itself.

The FCA has called this its first enforcement case against a crypto firm specifically over marketing, and it will watch whether HTX honours the pledge through October 2031 or quietly resumes UK-facing promotion via affiliates or social media. Other offshore exchanges still advertising without registration are the real test: whether the FCA pursues them with the same High Court route will show if this becomes a template or stays a one-off.

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