CARF is live: the UK crypto reporting reality advisers should prepare for

Crypto reporting increases visibility over time. A practical adviser checklist for records, provenance and continuity without custody.

Introduction

Crypto has historically been hard to administer because information is fragmented: multiple platforms, mixed custody models, and inconsistent records. That is changing. The UK's move towards a crypto reporting framework (aligned to the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework) signals a direction of travel: more visibility, more data, and higher expectations on record quality. For professionals, the 'why this matters' is simple: As reporting tightens, messy crypto records become a compliance, tax, and estate-admin problem.

Key takeaways

• Reporting regimes increase visibility and data integrity expectations over time. • The practical risk for clients is not only HMRC scrutiny; it is bad records causing bad outcomes (wrong tax, delayed estate administration, disputes). • The professional opportunity is to offer a clean 'crypto administrability' process: inventory, provenance, continuity. • Bitzo's role is non-custodial readiness and documentation so clients can prove what exists and how it can be accessed lawfully.

What changes when crypto becomes 'reportable'

The 'reporting reality' impacts three areas: 1) Tax evidence Clients will increasingly need consistent, reconstructable records: • acquisition dates and cost basis, • disposals and values, • transfers between wallets/platforms, • staking/airdrops where relevant, • supporting evidence that matches platform records. 2) Compliance comfort Professionals and clients become more sensitive to: • provenance and source of funds, • clarity of ownership, • separation between personal and business holdings, • avoidance of mixing unknown third-party flows. 3) Estate administration Executors cannot administer what they cannot identify. Reporting regimes do not magically solve access, but they do make 'it's all a mystery' less credible.

The real client risk: 'invisible admin debt'

Most crypto problems only show up at the worst possible time: • a tax return enquiry, • a divorce, • a sudden death, • an incapacity scenario, • a major platform incident. If the client's crypto life is held together by memory, screenshots and phone notes, professionals inherit a painful problem: admin debt. CARF-style reporting increases the cost of this debt.

A practical, adviser-friendly readiness process

This is what good looks like, without custody and without building a trading operation. Step 1: Inventory the asset footprint List: • exchanges used (past and present), • self-custody wallets and devices, • key identifiers the client can locate later, • where evidence lives (password manager, encrypted storage, physical packs). Step 2: Make provenance easy to evidence Create a record of: • where funds came from (at a high level), • when the client moved from fiat to crypto, • major wallet migrations, • any high-risk mixing or unclear third-party transfers (if present). Step 3: Separate access from documentation Clients often store everything together (which creates theft risk). Better: • documentation that maps the environment, • access steps that are protected and layered, • a 'trusted contact / executor' pathway that is lawful and clear. Step 4: Add continuity planning Tax records do not help if nobody can access the asset or prove authority. Continuity needs: • role clarity, • step-by-step process, • 'what if compromised' escalation, • review cadence.

Where Bitzo fits

Bitzo helps professionals guide clients through a structured, non-custodial process that creates: • a clean asset map, • documented access routes (without holding keys), • a continuity plan designed for incapacity/death scenarios, • reduced family chaos and reduced dispute risk. CARF-style reporting makes 'admin-ready crypto' more valuable. Bitzo makes it practical. Related reading: Security, Inheritance, and For Advisers.