Analysis of data from the UK tax authority (HMRC) for the 2024–2025 tax period revealed 240 taxpayers who declared profits from cryptoasset transactions exceeding £1 million ($1.35 million). This is the first time the regulator has published such detailed statistics on digital currencies.
The total profit declared by these 240 investors reached £717 million ($974 million). Notably, this amount accounts for more than half of all crypto income declared in the country for the year. The remaining market participants—17,600 individuals—showed modest results: their total revenue from digital asset sales amounted to £13.8 billion ($18.8 billion), with taxable profit of £1.38 billion ($1.88 billion), averaging about £78,000 per person.
The gender distribution is also telling: approximately 87% of declarations were filed by men and only 13% by women. This reflects the persistent imbalance in access to high-risk investment instruments.
Scale Beyond Exchanges
Chainalysis analysts estimate the total volume of taxable crypto transactions in the UK for 2025 at $19.4 billion. This is the fourth-highest figure globally, after the US, Germany, and China. This amount includes $6 billion in profits, $3.3 billion in income, and $10.1 billion in payments. However, as experts emphasize, this is only a lower bound: the methodology does not account for transactions on centralized exchanges and several networks, making the real figures significantly higher.
A New Era of Transparency
Starting in January 2026, the CARF (Cryptoasset Reporting Framework) reporting standard comes into effect. Crypto services will be required to share client data with tax authorities, and HMRC will begin receiving this information from 2027. Violating the requirements carries a fine of £300 per client. However, the system is not comprehensive: only 14% of global taxable on-chain transactions fall under CARF, with the remaining 86% being decentralized exchanges and direct P2P transfers.
My comment: The emergence of such data is a signal that regulators are moving from rhetoric to actual enforcement. For investors, this means anonymity in cryptocurrencies is becoming an illusion, and tax planning is becoming a mandatory element of strategy, not an option.