Holly’s Mackay's View on Crypto

I think crypto is interesting, but still the Wild West, and so it’s a hugely unreliable activity. I just don’t understand how to put a value on it, so it all feels like a big old bet to me.

I think you need to mentally be prepared to lose all your money if you buy crypto. That said, lots of people have made a lot of money here, but of course, no one goes on social media to boast about how much they have lost here either.

If you want to explore it in a low-risk way, and you accept that you might lose all the money and could financially tolerate this, then why not start with a small amount and cap your investment to something you could stomach losing? If you have, say, £1,000 to invest, could you put £200 into a crypto punt and be more sensible with the rest? Pick a low-cost global tracker fund for the remaining £800 and let this be your more stable approach? (With the usual caveats that investing in funds like this should be with a time horizon of at least 5 years so you can ride out the inevitable ups and downs, and only once you’ve paid off expensive debt and saved a cash buffer for short-term emergencies.)

I can’t mitigate the risk of crypto itself, but I can mitigate provider risk for you. I would choose a regulated, well-known entity which will have decent governance in place. Revolut (which is like a bank, but to be technically accurate, is actually currently regulated as an e-money institution by the FCA, so it is not covered by the FSCS scheme) should have decent governance around this. IG and eToro also offer crypto trading along with other investments and spicy stuff like ‘CFDs’ (which are another big Holly red flag! )

We can also now buy crypto Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) on mainstream investment platforms, including Interactive Investor, Saxo, and AJ Bell. This is probably the best way to buy crypto, in my opinion, as these guys are good operators and regulated. Global giant BlackRock listed its iShares Bitcoin Exchange Traded Product on the London Stock Exchange in late 2025, making it accessible after the UK regulator’s ban lift on 8 October 2025. You can buy these in an ISA until 6 April 2026, after which date they will need to be bought in the slightly different Innovative Finance ISA. Bit complicated – don’t shoot the messenger.

If you want to explore this, I would be really strict before you dabble and write down a maximum amount you will invest in the next 12 months and stick to it. It’s really easy to get seduced by short-term performance and get greedy - and that’s when things can go horribly wrong! I lost a lot of money in the dot.com crash of 2000, and it hurt. Taught me to be cautious and not mess around with things I don’t really understand or know how to value. So I steer clear of crypto.