Wednesday, September 02, 2026-Britain’s tax authority said 240 people reported cryptocurrency capital gains exceeding £1 million each during the 2024-25 tax year, as regulators intensify scrutiny of digital asset investors.
HM Revenue and Customs said 17,600 individuals declared taxable crypto capital gains during the period.
Those taxpayers reported £13.8 billion, or about $18.8 billion, in crypto disposal proceeds and £1.38 billion, or roughly $1.9 billion, in total gains.
The average reported gain was approximately £78,000.
The 240 people reporting gains above £1 million accounted for £717 million of the total, more than half of all crypto gains declared to HMRC.
The 2024-25 tax year marked the first time HMRC included a dedicated section for cryptocurrency capital gains on Self Assessment tax returns.
Crypto disposals had previously been reported within the broader capital gains section.
Separating digital assets gives the tax authority greater visibility into the scale and distribution of crypto-related gains.
The figures cover individuals who made disposals subject to Capital Gains Tax involving assets such as bitcoin, ether and dogecoin.
A taxable disposal in Britain can occur when an investor sells cryptocurrency, exchanges one digital asset for another, spends crypto on goods or services or makes certain gifts.
That means tax obligations are not limited to investors who convert cryptocurrency directly into pounds.
The figures show a relatively small group generated a large share of the reported gains.
The 240 investors with gains exceeding £1 million represented less than 1.4% of the 17,600 people who declared taxable crypto gains.
Yet their combined £717 million represented about 52% of the £1.38 billion total.
The data does not show how much tax those individuals ultimately paid.
Capital gains depend on factors including acquisition costs, available allowances, losses and individual tax circumstances.
The £13.8 billion in disposal proceeds should also not be confused with profits.
It represents the value of assets disposed of before allowable acquisition costs and other adjustments are considered.
The figures arrive as HMRC increases pressure on cryptocurrency investors suspected of failing to report taxes correctly.
Accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young said HMRC sent about 81,000 warning letters to crypto investors over the past year.
That was up approximately 25% from 65,000 a year earlier and almost three times the 27,714 letters sent during 2023-24.
The letters, commonly called nudge letters, encourage recipients to review their tax affairs and disclose unpaid liabilities before HMRC opens a formal investigation.
They are typically used when the authority has information suggesting that a taxpayer may have omitted income or gains.
The sharp increase indicates crypto tax enforcement is becoming more systematic.
HMRC is expected to gain considerably more information about crypto transactions beginning next year.
The UK began implementing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, in January.
Under the framework, participating crypto service providers will collect customer and transaction information that can be shared between national tax authorities.
HMRC is expected to begin receiving information on UK residents from exchanges and other crypto businesses in 52 jurisdictions from May 31, 2027, according to UHY Hacker Young.
Another 15 jurisdictions are expected to begin exchanging information in 2028.
That could make it harder for investors to leave gains on overseas platforms undeclared.
CARF represents one of the biggest changes to international cryptocurrency tax enforcement.
Traditional financial institutions already exchange extensive information about offshore accounts under international reporting agreements.
Crypto historically sat outside much of that infrastructure.
The new framework is intended to bring regulated digital asset service providers into a similar reporting system.
Information provided to HMRC could include details linking customers to transactions that may create taxable gains or income.
Authorities could then compare that information with tax returns.
Where the two do not match, investigations or additional warning letters could follow.
CARF will not give governments complete visibility into cryptocurrency activity.
Chainalysis recently estimated that global onchain activity potentially subject to taxation exceeded $457 billion in 2025.
However, only about 14% of the activity studied by Chainalysis involved events expected to fall directly within CARF reporting.
Much of the remainder involved decentralized exchanges, peer-to-peer transfers, payments and other onchain transactions.
That means tax authorities will still face challenges when activity occurs outside regulated intermediaries.
Public blockchains nevertheless leave transaction records that can be analyzed.
Once authorities connect a blockchain address to an identified customer at an exchange, they may be able to trace subsequent movements through other platforms.
Digital asset taxation can also be complicated for ordinary investors.
Someone who exchanges bitcoin for ether may create a taxable disposal even though no pounds enter a bank account.
Using cryptocurrency to buy a product can have the same effect.
Frequent traders can therefore generate large numbers of potentially reportable transactions.
Staking, mining and lending can create separate income-tax questions.
Stablecoins can add another layer when interest, lending income or foreign exchange effects are involved.
The rules can become particularly demanding for investors who have used several exchanges, wallets and decentralized protocols over multiple years.
UK taxpayers with crypto income or gains above applicable tax-free allowances during the 2025-26 tax year must report them through Self Assessment and pay tax due by Jan. 31, 2027.
By then, the enforcement environment will be changing rapidly.
HMRC will have more detailed domestic return data, a growing record of warning letters and the first wave of international crypto information exchange approaching.
For investors who have relied on cryptocurrency’s technical complexity or offshore platforms to remain outside tax scrutiny, that window appears to be narrowing.
The latest figures show that crypto has already become a material part of Britain’s capital gains system.
They also show how concentrated some of those gains are.
Only 240 taxpayers generated more than half of all crypto capital gains reported during the year.
As international reporting expands, HMRC is likely to gain a much clearer picture of how many more gains remain undeclared.
