Unregulated (Crypto)

Unregulated, in crypto, describes a business, token or activity that no financial regulator licenses or supervises. It can mean an exchange based in a country with no crypto rules, a service that operates without the licence its customers' countries require, or an activity, such as some peer-to-peer trading, that existing law does not clearly cover. The practical point for users is what is missing: no capital or custody rules checked by an authority, no required audits, no complaints scheme and, in a failure, often no clear route to recover funds. "Unregulated" is not the same as illegal, since some activities simply fall outside current law, but operating without a required licence can be an offence, as with unlicensed money transmission. Also see cryptocurrency regulation and virtual asset service providers.