German crypto adoption is progressing through family offices and wealth managers, while the UK’s retail-facing cryptocurrency market remains “nascent,” according to the researcher.
Cryptocurrency adoption is advancing in Germany, particularly among younger investors, while the UK is gradually falling behind, largely due to lagging regulations, according to CoinShares crypto researcher Luke Nolan.
German cryptocurrency adoption is showing “very good progress” through “family offices, wealth managers, individual advisors” and younger generations looking to invest inherited wealth in digital assets, Nolan told Cointelegraph on the Chain Reaction show on Thursday.
In contrast, the UK is “still very much behind,” said Nolan, adding that the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) only lifted its ban on crypto exchange-traded products less than a year ago, making its digital asset market “nascent.” The regulator previously banned these products from retail participants in January 2021.
Germany has 89 licensed crypto-asset service providers, accounting for 25.5% of companies in the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) register, updated on Wednesday.
The EU’s biggest economy was also the bloc’s leader by MiCA authorization in June, with 57 authorized crypto companies. The adoption trend is not lost on the largest German banks.