Bitcoin is not a generic cryptoasset and “Same risk, same regulation” only works if you look at the risk.

Bitcoin has:
- no company
- no insider allocation
- no one who can change the supply

Many of the tokens sitting beside it in the FCA’s cryptoasset rulebook have all three.

In addition, classifying Bitcoin as a Restricted Mass Market Investment brings warnings, appropriateness tests and cooling-off periods built for products with promoters and issuers … Bitcoin has neither.

If the risks are different, the rules should be too.

See our open letter to the FCA, explaining why “same risk, same regulation” should work both ways.

France now leads the world for physical attacks on crypto holders, and the UK is third.

@Gart reported:

- 404 attacks across 61 countries
- attacks rose 90% from 2024 to 2025
- 35 people killed
- 95 home invasions
- 88 kidnappings

https://gart.io/stats

The attacks have closely tracked the bitcoin price, and the drop at the end of that chart is a lag in the data, not a threat that has passed.

The target is not an exchange account or a hacked wallet, it’s someone’s home.

Once a name and a home address are tied to a Bitcoin holding, that link does not expire.

That is why expanding the amount of identity and transaction data HMRC can obtain deserves scrutiny. 

Tax enforcement should not create the data trail that leads someone to your home.

My latest in Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/10/08/hmrcs-proposed-crypto-powers-could-increase-physical-security-risks/

More reporting and background:

https://pressfiles.media/archive/articles/hmrcs-proposed-crypto-powers-could-increase-physical-security-risks/

HMRC wants more power over financial data. The problem is that Bitcoin is not a bank account.

Once names, home addresses and tax IDs are linked to a Bitcoin address, that information can stay connected to a public ledger indefinitely.

Europe is already seeing the consequences when crypto holders’ identities and holdings are exposed.

France saw 19 verified physical attacks on crypto holders in 2025. A French tax official was charged after using government software to look up crypto investors' details and passing data to criminals.

I spoke to HM Revenue & Customs, Recap, BULL BITCOIN and Knightbridge Tax about what the UK and EU rules could mean for privacy, self-custody and physical security.

Tax enforcement should not create a target list.

My latest for Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/10/08/hmrcs-proposed-crypto-powers-could-increase-physical-security-risks/

This is how you sleepwalk into a surveillance state.

It does not arrive overnight. It is chipped away, one ‘reasonable’ measure at a time, until proving who you are becomes a condition of participating in everyday life.

@Free Cities Foundation

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-releases/big-brother-watch-on-uk-governments-plans-to-enforce-passport-id-checks-on-social-media/

Britain’s debt problem just got worse.

Right now:
- 6%+ on 30 year gilts, highest since 1998

By 2027/28:
- £117 billion debt interest
- £96.5 billion new borrowing

Over 5 years:
- £682 billion interest
- £58 billion above OBR’s March forecast

Britain is now forecast to spend more on debt interest than it will borrow that year.

After all of that, Britain still owes nearly £3 trillion.

https://uknationaldebt.com/

The Budget is on 28 October and the choices are brutal:

- Tax more and risk capital leaving
- Borrow more and pay more interest
- Dramatically cut spending*
- Debase the currency (although they won't call it that)

* Even savage spending cuts will barely make a dent.

Source: This is Money / Capital Economics / OBR

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-16180359/Alarm-Healey-set-spend-loan-repayments-borrowing-latest-Budget-blow.html

Bitcoin has spent years being defined by people who didn’t really understand it.

Mainstream coverage focused on crime, scams, energy use and volatility.

That is how many people came to understand Bitcoin, including the politicians and policymakers now being asked to regulate it.

I don’t necessarily blame journalists. Bitcoin is complicated, newsrooms are under huge pressure, and once bad information is out there it gets repeated incredibly quickly.

That’s what I’m trying to undo through my journalism and through @Bitcoin Policy UK, because Brandolini’s Law is painfully real. It takes an order of magnitude more energy to refute bad information than it does to create it in the first place.

I spoke to CK about Bitcoin’s perception problem, what policymakers understand about it, and what happens when years of bad information begin feeding into policy.

Last year Chris was using the heat from Bitcoin mining heat to make beef bits @BTCHEL 25.-26. SEPTEMBER.

This year he’s using the heat to warm a chicken coop, dry and smoke grain and now he wants to build a fermentation silo for beer, kombucha and whisky.

In this demo in Helsinki, Chris explains how he’s using a Bitcoin miner to make whisky.

Anything that needs stable heat is a mining use case!

Bitcoin is being regulated in Europe and the UK before policymakers have really understood what Bitcoin is.

At @BTCHEL 25.-26. SEPTEMBER, the first panel set out three approaches:

- Protect sovereignty and self custody
- Work within MiCA and regulated rails
- Push back when state power goes too far

The second panel asked who is writing Bitcoin policy across Europe.

Brussels, national regulators, courts, governments and parliaments each write a piece, but banks still decide whether you get an account or can send a payment.

You can have a law that looks open but you can still be shut out in practice. Lawful Bitcoin payments are already being blocked, accounts restricted, and customers made to jump through hoops that have nothing to do with the statute.

In the UK the FCA, Treasury and Bank of England are already writing the rulebook, while Parliament is still debating what an overarching digital asset strategy should look like.

By 2030, Europe will have written more law around Bitcoin. If it is still being treated as just another cryptoasset, the rules may never properly account for what makes Bitcoin different.

We still have a long way to go, but thank you to my fellow panellists for all their work.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the response this week and by how much it means to people to see Bitcoin Policy UK moving forward.

As I said in the announcement:

“Bitcoin has no CEO, no head office and no central body speaking for it. Bitcoin does not need permission. Our job is to make sure policymakers understand how it works and where rules built around issuers and intermediaries do not fit.”

We never stopped doing the work. We only scaled back so the work we were doing was sustainable. We have a plan for the rest of 2026 and are in a strong position heading into 2027.