Financial watchdog warns UK crypto fans to be wary of dealing with Sam Bankman-Fried's exchange FTX

• The UK's financial regulator has warned Brits to be cautious when dealing with crypto exchange FTX.
• "This firm is not authorized by us and is targeting people in the UK," the Financial Conduct Authority said.

The UK's financial watchdog has warned Brits against dealing with Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange FTX as it steps up its attempts to regulate offshore digital asset firms.

The Financial Conduct Authority said Friday that FTX has promoted its platform and services in the UK without its consent.

"We believe this firm may be providing financial services or products in the UK without our authorization," the regulator said in a statement.

"Almost all firms and individuals offering, promoting or selling financial services or products in the UK have to be authorized or registered by us," it added. "This firm is not authorized by us and is targeting people in the UK … you are unlikely to get your money back if things go wrong."

It is not the first time the FCA has clashed with a major crypto exchange.

In August last year, it said that the world's largest exchange, Binance, was "not capable" of being effectively supervised – making it a significant risk to UK consumers.

The FCA and other financial watchdogs have struggled to regulate major crypto exchanges, many of which are based offshore. FTX is registered in the Bahamas but said this month it had been granted an investment license in Cyprus, potentially allowing it to expand in the European Union.

FTX did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read more: 'Crypto investors aren't stupid, but nobody stands up for us.' We spoke to retail traders who lost up to $200,000 in the Binance outage about their 2,000-person campaign against the world's largest crypto exchange.