UK Tax Data: 240 People Reported Over £1M Each in Crypto Gains, Accounting for More Than Half of All Capital Gains
LONDON, 28 August 2026 | By Verse Press Staff --- HMRC has released its first dedicated crypto capital gains dataset, covering the 2024-25 tax year, and the numbers expose a sharp concentration of wealth at the top of the UK crypto market.
LONDON, 28 August 2026 | By Verse Press Staff
HMRC has released its first dedicated crypto capital gains dataset, covering the 2024-25 tax year, and the numbers expose a sharp concentration of wealth at the top of the UK crypto market. Just 240 individuals each reported crypto gains exceeding £1 million, together accounting for £717 million (roughly $975 million) in capital gains.
That represents 52% of all crypto capital gains declared across the country, even though those 240 filers make up barely 1.4% of the 17,600 people who reported any taxable crypto activity at all.
The total reported across all filers came to £1.38 billion in gains, drawn from £13.8 billion in disposal proceeds. The average gain per individual was £78,000 (approximately $106,000). This is also the first tax year in which HMRC gave crypto its own dedicated section on the Self Assessment return, rather than folding it into a general capital assets category. That structural change makes discrepancies considerably easier to identify.
Those figures were amplified by a sustained bull market: Bitcoin rose approximately 315% over the two years through October 2025, according to analysis by UHY Hacker Young, lifting the value of disposals across the board.
The data also reveals a notable gender split. According to GOV.UK figures, 87% of those reporting crypto gains were male and 13% were female.
What Counts as a Taxable Event
Under UK tax law, taxable disposals include selling crypto for fiat currency, swapping one cryptocurrency for another, spending crypto at a retailer, and certain gifts. Mining and staking income falls under income tax rather than capital gains tax. Basic rate taxpayers currently owe 18% on crypto gains; higher and additional rate taxpayers owe 24%. The annual tax-free allowance is £3,000, a figure that has been reduced in recent years.
Financial Secretary to the Treasury James Murray MP said in the official HMRC release that "taxes are due on cryptoasset gains just like any other gains," adding that the government wants to ensure people understand what they owe. HMRC Permanent Secretary John-Paul Marks said the agency is focused on making it "as easy as possible for people to understand and meet their tax obligations."
Enforcement Is Accelerating Faster Than Filing Numbers Suggest
HMRC has sent 81,000 "nudge letters" (pre-investigation notices to suspected non-compliers) in the current cycle, up 25% from 65,000 the previous year and nearly triple the 27,714 sent in 2023-24.
The agency says its compliance activities raised an additional £168 million in capital gains tax during 2024-25.
Neela Chauhan, a partner at accounting firm UHY Hacker Young, warned that the combination of HMRC data and AI tooling creates a structural risk for anyone who has not filed. "With this data and some fairly basic AI-built software, HMRC will be able to build a comprehensive list of all cryptocurrency investors that are behind on their CGT or income tax," she said.
UHY Hacker Young estimates roughly 7 million UK adults hold crypto assets with a combined value of around £12.9 billion. With only 17,600 people filing gains in 2024-25, a substantial portion of that population appears to have either made no taxable disposals or has not reported the ones they did make. GNCrypto News estimates that as many as 4.5 million UK crypto holders could face unexpected penalties in 2026 as enforcement ramps up.
The Cross-Border Enforcement Layer: CARF
The more significant long-term pressure comes from an international mechanism called the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework (CARF), developed by the OECD. Active in the UK from 1 January 2026, CARF requires registered crypto exchanges, custodians, and brokers to collect verified user identities, tax residencies, wallet addresses, and transaction histories, then pass this data to HMRC. By 31 May 2027, HMRC will begin receiving automatic data feeds from 52 participating jurisdictions, with 15 more countries joining by 2028. Non-compliant crypto-asset service providers face fines of up to £300 per user, a compliance burden with direct implications for platform operators and developers building in this space.
This has direct consequences for diaspora communities. South Africa activated CARF from 1 March 2026, meaning UK residents with South African exchange accounts are now exposed to reporting from both directions.
Nigeria, home to one of the UK's largest African diaspora populations, moved its crypto exchanges onto a unified national ID (NIN-based) reporting system from January 2026. Separately, the Nigerian Tax Act 2025 sets income tax rates on crypto gains at up to 25%.
Kenya and Ghana present similar exposure for their respective UK diaspora communities. Kenya ranks fifth in Africa for crypto adoption, driven largely by remittance corridors, and Kenyan and Ghanaian UK residents who have used crypto for cross-border value transfer are now caught between two enforcement regimes as CARF participation expands.
For South Asian UK residents, the pattern is similar. India taxes crypto gains at a flat 30% rate and additionally imposes a 1% tax deducted at source on transactions exceeding certain thresholds, a provision that affects higher-frequency traders and regular remittance users. While India has not confirmed CARF adoption, its digital tax infrastructure is advancing steadily. More immediately relevant: UK residents who use crypto as a remittance tool, converting stablecoins or bitcoin to local currency on the receiving end, are likely triggering taxable disposals in the UK regardless of what happens in the destination country.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated that potentially taxable on-chain crypto activity reached at least $457 billion globally in 2025. Critically, CARF-covered transactions represent only around 14% of that activity, meaning the majority of taxable crypto flows still fall outside current reporting frameworks. That gap is expected to narrow as more jurisdictions sign on and as HMRC refines its AI matching tools.
What Comes Next
HMRC operates a Crypto Disclosure Service on GOV.UK that allows individuals to voluntarily declare unpaid gains before any formal investigation begins. The deadline for filing Self Assessment returns covering the 2025-26 tax year is 31 January 2027, which also happens to fall just months before HMRC begins receiving CARF data from participating countries. The revenue stakes behind that framework are considerable: HMRC projects an additional £80 million in annual tax revenue by 2029-30 from CARF data alone, according to analysis by RPC Legal.
Chauhan's advice to anyone with undisclosed gains is to seek professional guidance before that window closes. After May 2027, the data available to investigators becomes substantially richer and the cost of non-disclosure rises accordingly.
Verse Press covers crypto regulation, infrastructure, and market structure with a focus on practical impact for builders and users across Africa, South Asia, and the wider global south.