An independent research site for crypto in Wales

CryptoMarket Wales is an independent information and research website covering how people in Wales buy, sell, hold and are taxed on cryptoassets. We are not a broker, an exchange, a bank or a financial adviser, and we are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Why this site exists

The honest answer is that the existing material was bad. Search for how to buy crypto in Cardiff and you find generic UK articles with a city name inserted, lists of exchanges ordered by affiliate payout, and confident assertions about Bitcoin ATMs in Welsh towns where no machine has operated for years.

Meanwhile the genuinely Welsh part of the story was going unwritten. Wales has lost bank branches faster than most of the UK — from roughly 695 in 2012 to about 435 by 2022 — and around 200,000 people here are described as reliant on cash. That combination shapes how crypto actually reaches people in the Valleys, in rural Powys and along the north coast, and none of it appears in a generic guide.

So we did the work. We audited 26 Welsh towns for crypto ATM availability rather than repeating what a tracker said. We checked each platform's UK legal entity on the FCA Register rather than trusting a marketing page. We pulled fraud figures from the four Welsh police forces. Where a reliable figure does not exist — and there are conspicuous gaps, including any credible Wales-specific crypto ownership number — we say so instead of estimating.

What we do

We research, compare and explain. Our platform rankings assess firms on registration status, GBP rails, real cost and usability. Our ATM audit is original fieldwork. Our data page collects every figure we cite with its source attached, published as a reference for anyone writing about this subject.

We also spend a considerable amount of space on things that do not make anyone money: how banks block payments, what HMRC expects, why every crypto card transaction is a taxable disposal, and how fraud operations actually work in Welsh communities. That material exists because it is what people need, not because it converts.

What we do not do

We do not give financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and nothing on this site is a personal recommendation. We are not qualified to tell you whether to buy an asset, how much to buy, or what to do with your money, and we will not pretend otherwise.

We do not operate promo codes, run referral competitions, or publish "exclusive offers". We do not accept payment for a ranking position or for favourable coverage. We do not publish content written by the firms we cover.

How this site is funded

We have no commercial arrangement with any platform listed on this site. We are not paid for listings, for placement, or for anyone who follows a link from here. This is set out in full in our editorial policy, which also explains what happens if it ever changes.

It does not change our rankings, our assessments or what we write. The clearest evidence of that is the volume of material here that actively discourages transactions — the pages explaining why home mining loses money, why crypto cards create an administrative burden, why stablecoins are not savings accounts, and why anyone in financial difficulty should speak to Citizens Advice rather than open an exchange account.

How we work

We prioritise primary sources: FCA publications and enforcement notices, HMRC guidance, legislation, Office for National Statistics data, parliamentary and Senedd committee evidence, and police force figures. Where we rely on secondary reporting we say so. Where a figure is our own audit work, we label it and explain the method.

We review pages when a source publishes something new or when a material change occurs, rather than on a fixed schedule. Each page carries the date of its last substantive review. Regulation in this area is moving quickly — the FSMA cryptoasset regime takes effect on 25 October 2027 — so some of what is written here will need revisiting.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we want to know and we will fix it. That includes factual errors, out-of-date figures, broken links and anything where you have a better primary source than the one we used. Email contact@cryptomarket.wales.

A note on tone

The FCA's standing position is that you should be prepared to lose all the money you put in, and we agree with it. You are unlikely to have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

We are not here to talk anyone out of buying crypto, and we are not here to talk anyone into it. We are here so that whichever you decide, you do it knowing what the rules are, what it costs, and where the traps sit. In a sector where most published information is selling something, that turns out to be a reasonably distinctive position.

Get in touch

Corrections, sources, questions and press enquiries all go to contact@cryptomarket.wales, or through our contact page. We read everything. We cannot give individual financial advice, and we will not respond to requests to add a firm to our rankings in exchange for anything.