Connect with us

Published

on

CEO of cryptocurrency platform Coinbase Brian Armstrong attends a reception at Buckingham Palace, in central London, on November 27, 2023 to mark the conclusion of the Global Investment Summit (GIS). (Photo by Daniel LEAL / POOL / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL LEAL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Daniel Leal | Afp | Getty Images

Coinbase, Crypto.com, Gemini and other cryptocurrency exchanges are warning users in the U.K. that they’ll need to start filling out risk assessments and investment questionnaires aimed at testing their financial knowledge.

It comes ahead of tough new rules on the advertising of digital asset products in the country.

The firms have told users in Britain that, starting Jan. 8, they will be required to complete a declaration about what type of investor they are, and respond to a questionnaire asking questions on a range of aspects of financial services and regulation to continue using their respective platforms.

In the customer declaration section, users are asked to select their investor profile: either high-net-worth individual earning above £100,000 (roughly $126,700) annually or with a net worth of more than £250,000, or a “restricted investor” that won’t invest more than 10% of their assets. Otherwise, they cannot trade crypto.

The financial questionnaires, which vary from exchange to exchange, require users to respond to numerous questions about what range of products the firms offer, the volatile nature of crypto asset prices, and the treatment of crypto as a product by financial regulators.

If a customer fails to complete the tasks successfully, they will be prevented from trading with their crypto account.

Since the passing of the Financial Services and Markets Act, a major package of financial services reforms in the U.K., firms that offer crypto and a certain type of digital currency called stablecoins are now covered by the law and must adhere to the same rules as those that govern traditional financial services.

Since Oct. 8, firms seeking to promote cryptoassets in the U.K. to retail customers must be authorized or registered with the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or have their marketing approved by an FCA-authorized firm.

Coinbase said that the changes were made “to ensure we are meeting UK investor protection standards, which require our users to have the necessary knowledge to make informed investment decisions.”

“This process is also part of Coinbase’s commitment to working collaboratively with local regulators so that we can best serve our users now and in the future,” a Coinbase spokesperson told CNBC via email.

A Crypto.com spokesperson gave similar reasoning for the move, saying its changes were made “primarily to ensure customers understand the risks of investing in cryptocurrency, which is a key component of the important consumer protections being put in place by the FCA.”

“We do not expect this to impact user activity in the UK and as always our customer service team is on hand to help with any queries,” George Tucker, U.K. general manager of Crypto.com, told CNBC via email.

“As an authorised Electronic Money Institution and registered cryptoasset business in the U.K., Crypto.com supports and complies with the FCA’s rules and will continue to work with the regulator as we expand our product offering here,” Tucker added.

Crypto firms in a tight spot

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has been advocate of the U.K.’s role as a crypto hub, particularly as the exchange faces a tougher time at home with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission suing the firm over securities law violations.

In April last year, he told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal that Coinbase was “looking at other markets” to invest in beyond the U.S. and was “probably going to invest more” in the U.K., given in its push to position itself as a crypto hub.

But the new financial advertising regulations have put some crypto firms in a tight spot.

Some crypto companies have suspended their services in the U.K. in response to the new rules. ByBit, an unregistered crypto firm, halted services to U.K. customers, while Luno said it is halting some U.K. clients from making crypto investments. PayPal, meanwhile, said it is suspending some crypto services until it brings its crypto arm into compliance with the new rules.

Binance, which was slapped by U.S. authorities with a $4.3 billion settlement over money laundering charges last year, tried in October to get its marketing authorized in the U.K. with a third-party firm. But it was blocked by the FCA, which at the time said it was doing so to protect consumers.

Continue Reading

Technology

Tesla faces protests in Austin over Musk’s robotaxi plans

Published

on

By

Tesla faces protests in Austin over Musk's robotaxi plans

In an aerial view, a Tesla showroom at 12845 N. US 183 Highway Service Road is seen after police were called for a suspicious device in Austin, Texas, on March 24, 2025.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

With Elon Musk looking to June 22 as his tentative start date for Tesla’s pilot robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, protesters are voicing their opposition.

Public safety advocates and political protesters, upset with Musk’s work with the Trump administration, joined together in downtown Austin on Thursday to express their concerns about the robotaxi launch. Members of the Dawn Project, Tesla Takedown and Resist Austin say that Tesla’s partially automated driving systems have safety problems.

Tesla sells its cars with a standard Autopilot package, or a premium Full Self-Driving option (also known as FSD or FSD supervised), in the U.S. Automobiles with these systems, which include features like automatic lane keeping, steering and parking, have been involved in dozens of collisions, some fatal, according to data tracked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Tesla’s robotaxis, which Musk showed off in a video clip on X earlier this week, are new versions of the company’s popular Model Y vehicles, equipped with a future release of Tesla’s FSD software. That “unsupervised” FSD, or robotaxi technology, is not yet available to the public.

Tesla critics with The Dawn Project, which calls itself a tech-safety and security education business, brought a version of Model Y with relatively recent FSD software (version 2025.14.9) to show residents of Austin how it works.

In their demonstration on Thursday, they showed how a Tesla with FSD engaged zoomed past a school bus with a stop sign held out and ran over a child-sized mannequin that they put in front of the vehicle.

Dawn Project CEO Dan O’Dowd also runs Green Hills Software, which sells technology to Tesla competitors, including Ford and Toyota.

Stephanie Gomez, who attended the demonstration, told CNBC that she didn’t like the role Musk had been playing in the government. Additionally, she said she has no confidence in Tesla’s safety standards and said there’s been a lack of transparency from Tesla regarding how its robotaxis will work.

Another protester, Silvia Revelis, said she also opposed Musk’s political activity, but that safety is the biggest concern.

“Citizens have not been able to get safety testing results,” she said. “Musk believes he’s above the law.”

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

— Todd Wiseman contributed to this report.

WATCH: Tesla’s next leg up is $400

Tesla's next leg up is $400 per share, says KKM's Jeff Kilburg

Continue Reading

Technology

Anne Wojcicki to buy back 23andMe and its data for $305 million

Published

on

By

Anne Wojcicki to buy back 23andMe and its data for 5 million

23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2025.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and former CEO of 23andMe, has regained control over the embattled genetic testing company after her new nonprofit, TTAM Research Institute, outbid Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the company announced Friday. 

TTAM will acquire substantially all of 23andMe’s assets for $305 million, including its Personal Genome Service and Research Services business lines as well as telehealth subsidiary Lemonaid Health. It’s a big win for Wojcicki, who stepped down from her role as CEO when 23andMe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March.

Last month, Regeneron announced it would purchase most of 23andMe’s assets for $256 million after it came out on top during a bankruptcy auction. But Wojcicki submitted a separate $305 million bid through TTAM and pushed to reopen the auction. TTAM is an acronym for the first letters of 23andMe, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“I am thrilled that TTAM Research Institute will be able to continue the mission of 23andMe to help people access, understand and benefit from the human genome,” Wojcicki said in a statement.

23andMe gained popularity because of its at-home DNA testing kits that gave customers insight into their family histories and genetic profiles. The five-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company went public in 2021 via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. At its peak, 23andMe was valued at around $6 billion.

The company struggled to generate recurring revenue and stand up viable research and therapeutics businesses after going public, and it has been plagued by privacy concerns since hackers accessed the information of nearly seven million customers in 2023.

TTAM’s acquisition is still subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Regeneron CEO on 23andMe bid: Trying to balance individual privacy with biotech & genetics research

Continue Reading

Technology

Oracle’s stock closes out best week since 2001 on cloud momentum

Published

on

By

Oracle's stock closes out best week since 2001 on cloud momentum

Oracle CEO Safra Catz speaks at the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2025.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Oracle shares enjoyed their best week since 2001 as Wall Street cheered a strong earnings report and bullish comments on the company’s prospects in cloud computing.

The stock jumped about 24% for the week, with almost all the gains coming in the two trading days after the company’s quarterly earnings release. The last time Oracle had a better week was in April 2001, in the midst of the dot-com crash, when so-called dead-cat bounces were common. The prior quarter Oracle shares lost almost half their value.

It’s a much different company today, and while Oracle was generally viewed as a late entrant into the cloud infrastructure market, the company has found a niche and is seeing rapid growth helping clients operate artificial intelligence models.

“Oracle is in the enviable position of having more demand than it can fulfill,” Joseph Bonner, an analyst at Argus Research, wrote in a note to clients on Friday. He recommends buying the shares and lifted his price target to $235 from $200.

Oracle rose to a record on Friday, closing at $215.22.

In the company’s earnings report late Wednesday, revenue and earnings topped estimates. CEO Safra Catz said sales for the new fiscal year should come in above $67 billion, higher than LSEG’s $65.18 billion consensus.

“The demand is astronomical,” Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman told analysts on the earnings call. “But we have to do this methodically. The reason demand continues to outstrip supply is we can only build these data centers, build these computers, so fast.”

Oracle has been playing catchup in cloud to rivals Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

In the 2025 fiscal year, Oracle’s capital expenditures exceeded $21 billion, which is more than the company spent from 2019 to 2024. The sum should reach $25 billion in fiscal 2026, Catz said on the call.

Google anticipates $75 billion in capital spending this year. Microsoft’s target for the fiscal year is $80 billion.

Oracle’s client list now includes Meta, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. They’re among the companies that require the most Nvidia graphics processing units to train generative AI models that create text, images and videos in response to a few words of human input.

Startups Baseten, Physical Intelligence and Vast Data are also cloud clients, Oracle announced this week.

“We will build and operate more cloud infrastructure data centers than all of our cloud infrastructure competitors combined,” Ellison said.

Oracle shares are up 29% so far in 2025, while the Nasdaq is up less than 1%. Among the most highly valued U.S. tech companies, the next best performer for the year is Meta, which is up around 17%.

WATCH: Oracle shares pop on strong demand, Q4 earnings beat

Oracle shares pop on strong demand, Q4 earnings beat

Continue Reading

Trending