Neil Liversidge: “Cryptos are a con in the truest sense of the term. I’m out to crash cryptos and cripple criminals.”
West Riding Personal Financial Solutions managing director and IFA Neil Liversidge has launched a petition to try and end the transaction of cryptocurrency in the UK.
Liversidge (pictured), whose own firm now requires a guarantee from every fund manager to say they will not purchase cryptos, told Investment Week’s sister publicationProfessional Adviser he has helped several clients who fell victim to online scammers.
One was blackmailed into sending £5,000 in Bitcoin after he thought he was sending private photos to a woman he met online.
The second victim, Liversidge said, was a elderly woman groomed by a South African gang of Bitcoin scammers operating a ‘trading programme’ fraud. She lost £18,000.
“Cryptos are a con in the truest sense of the term. I’m out to crash cryptos and cripple criminals,” he said.
The IFA hopes the petition will encourage the UK government to act now in banning cryptocurrency transactions happening in the UK.
“If the UK government takes a lead by banning transactions on cryptos as my petition requests, that will set off a chain reaction, crashing cryptos overnight.”
Liversidge continued: “Law enforcement will never catch them all, it won’t even catch most of them, but destroying their financial base reduces their power. It’s a start.
“So if you’re holding cryptos now, my advice to you is to find a bigger fool than you and dump them quick.”
‘Buy my fresh air’
In his experience, Liversidge said many scammers manipulate language to make it look like they are selling something well-known and genuine.
“Robert Maxwell named his company the Maxwell Communications Corporation, the MCC, much to the chagrin of the venerable Marylebone Cricket Club. So new cryptos are now launched using the jargon of ‘Initial Coin Offerings’ – ‘ICOs’ – deliberately mimicking the Initial Public Offering – IPO – that is the established jargon for bringing legitimate private companies to the public markets. “
He added: “The only difference, of course, is that companies come to market with a prospectus signed off by lawyers, accountants and bankers, years’ worth of accounts behind them, balance sheets listing assets, profit and loss accounts and a track record of trading.
“Cryptos ‘come to market’ with nothing. An ICO amounts to less than ‘buy my fresh air’.”
Stopping cryptocurrencies
In October last year, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned the retail sale of crypto-derivatives, amid concerns about valuations, volatility and the prevalence of financial crime in the market.
Following a period of consultation, the regulator determined that unregulated transferable cryptoassets of this kind have no inherent value and are poorly understood by retail investors, who have no “legitimate investment need” to access the products.
In July last year, the regulator began consulting on the ban and saw an overwhelming 97% of respondents oppose its proposals.
You can view the petition here.
