Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has asked the Financial Conduct Authority to investigate whether Nigel Farage's promotional video for Stack BTC amounts to market abuse, given his 6% equity stake in the company.
Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, wrote to the Financial Conduct Authority on 13 April requesting a formal investigation into Nigel Farage's role in promoting a £2 million bitcoin purchase by Stack BTC — a British crypto firm in which the Reform UK leader holds a stake of just over 6 per cent, acquired through a £215,000 personal investment.
The complaint centres on a promotional video released by Stack featuring Farage and former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. In it, the pair discuss Stack's acquisition of roughly 37 BTC at prevailing market prices. Farage holds equity in the company through a personal vehicle; Cooper argues that appearing in a video designed to attract investors and attention to a firm in which you hold a direct financial interest crosses a line from political advocacy into potential market abuse.
Cooper's letter specifically asks the FCA to determine three things: whether Farage's actions amount to attempted interference in the cryptocurrency market, whether they constitute market abuse under existing financial promotion rules, and whether his public statements may have exposed retail investors to harm. The FCA confirmed it would review the letter and respond directly but has not announced a formal investigation.
The political context is hard to separate from the regulatory one. Farage has spent the past two years positioning himself as the champion of British crypto voters — calling for a UK state bitcoin reserve, pressing for lower capital gains tax on digital assets, and reportedly meeting with David Bailey, the American bitcoin advocate who helped draft elements of the Trump administration's crypto policy. Reform UK has also faced questions about crypto-linked donations, though no formal findings have been made.
Cooper's accusation — that Farage is following a 'Trump playbook' by using crypto promotion to serve personal financial interests — is pointed but not entirely unfair. The pattern of politicians acquiring equity positions in crypto ventures and then using their public platforms to generate attention for those ventures has become a bipartisan concern in the United States. World Liberty Financial, the Trump-linked DeFi project, drew similar criticism; the difference is that the UK's financial promotion regime, governed by the FCA under the Financial Services and Markets Act, is considerably stricter than anything the SEC currently enforces for crypto promotions.
Stack BTC itself is a relatively small operation. The company's £2 million bitcoin purchase — made at roughly £54,000 per coin at Q1 2026 prices — is modest by institutional standards. What makes it newsworthy isn't the size of the trade but the identity of the promoter. A sitting MP with 2.2 million social media followers endorsing a company in which he owns equity is a different proposition from a fintech startup posting a press release.
Reform UK has pushed back, claiming that Farage purchased bitcoin on behalf of the company rather than promoting it for personal gain. That distinction may be legally relevant — the FCA's rules on financial promotions depend heavily on whether communication is designed to induce investment activity — but it doesn't address the core conflict of interest. A 6 per cent shareholder benefits from anything that raises a company's profile, regardless of intent.
Labour has described Farage's involvement as 'a bid to line his pockets,' which is about as diplomatically as the opposition has put anything this year. The Conservatives — whose own evolving stance on digital assets has shifted markedly since Rishi Sunak's government courted crypto firms in 2023 — have stayed conspicuously quiet, unwilling to defend Farage but equally reluctant to hand Labour a populist talking point about financial regulation.
Whether the FCA opens a formal probe will depend on whether it concludes the video constitutes a financial promotion under Section 21 of FSMA. If it does, Farage's failure to disclose his financial interest prominently — the video reportedly makes no mention of his equity stake — could trigger enforcement action. If the FCA decides the video is political speech rather than a financial promotion, the matter dies on procedural grounds regardless of how it looks to voters.
The crypto industry in Britain has enough regulatory uncertainty without a culture war over bitcoin and party politics. But that appears to be exactly what it's getting.
