Searching for "IG cryptocurrency" sends many people down the wrong path. The result they expect is a digital coin, a token, or a blockchain network with IG's name on it. No such asset exists. IG is the trading name of IG Group, a London-listed broker that has sold spread bets and contracts for difference since 1974. What the company labels as crypto is a derivative that tracks the price of a coin, not the coin itself. This article explains what IG actually is, which regulator watches which part of the business, what the crypto product really contains, and the protections a client receives. It also shows how to check IG's status on a public register rather than taking any single page at face value.
IG Group was founded in 1974 by Stuart Wheeler as the world's first financial spread betting firm. The parent, IG Group Holdings plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is headquartered at 88 Wood Street in the City of London. Across nearly fifty years the group grew into one of the largest CFD and spread betting providers by revenue, serving clients through more than seventeen thousand markets.
The products are mainstream brokerage lines. Clients can run spread betting positions, trade CFDs on shares, indices, forex, commodities and crypto, hold share dealing accounts, and open stocks and shares ISAs or SIPPs. Crypto is a small slice of that range, and it is delivered as a contract for difference, which is a bet on price movement settled in cash. Owning a CFD is not the same as owning bitcoin, ether, or any other token.
The single brand "IG" hides several separate legal entities, and the regulator depends on which one holds your account. In the United Kingdom three companies are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and each carries a register number you can look up.
Outside the United Kingdom the structure is local. IG Europe GmbH, based in Frankfurt, is listed by BaFin as a securities institution and a crypto-asset service provider. IG Australia Pty Ltd holds AFSL 515106, and the group also runs a New Zealand derivatives issuer licence (FSP 684191). In the United States the relevant entity is tastyfx LLC, a CFTC-registered retail foreign exchange dealer and NFA member (NFA ID 0509630); IG acquired the tastytrade business in 2021. Retail CFD trading is not permitted for clients in the United States, so the US arm sells a different product set.
At IG the crypto product is a contract for difference on the price of assets such as bitcoin, ether, litecoin and XRP. You take a view that the price will rise or fall, and your profit or loss is the difference between the entry and exit level, settled in cash. You do not receive a coin, you do not hold a wallet, you do not control private keys, and you cannot stake or lend the position. The contract expires or is closed; it never becomes the underlying asset.
This distinction matters most for readers in Britain. The Financial Conduct Authority banned the sale of crypto derivatives, including crypto CFDs and exchange-traded notes, to retail clients with effect from 6 January 2021. The ban remains in force. IG therefore does not offer crypto CFDs to retail clients based in the United Kingdom. The crypto CFD offering is directed at professional clients and at clients booked under non-UK entities where local rules allow it. Any page that implies a UK retail customer can open a bitcoin CFD with IG is out of date or wrong.
Regulated status is not a marketing slogan; it carries concrete obligations. Under the FCA's client asset rules (CASS), retail client money must sit in segregated trust accounts at major banks, and IG names Barclays and Lloyds among the institutions that hold that cash. Segregation means the broker's own operating funds are kept separate from client funds.
Eligible UK clients are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £85,000 per person per firm, the standard limit for authorised brokers. Retail CFD clients also receive negative balance protection under FCA rules, which means a losing position cannot leave you owing more than you deposited. In other jurisdictions the local scheme applies instead: Australian clients sit under AFCA, for example.
None of these protections extends to the coins themselves. With a CFD you never hold the coin, so there is no wallet for the scheme to reimburse and no token to recover if the venue fails.
IG publishes the standard industry loss ratio, and it is blunt: around 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. Leverage is the reason. A small move in the underlying price is multiplied across a larger position, so gains and losses both arrive faster than the cash deposited would suggest.
Crypto CFDs carry an extra warning from the firm itself. IG states plainly that crypto is a high-risk investment and that you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. The FCA's own consumer warning tells retail buyers to assume they could lose all the money they put in. Anyone comparing IG with an exchange that custodies real coins should note the difference: on an exchange a price fall hurts your holding, but a leveraged CFD can lose more than the holding would have, up to the point of the negative balance limit.
The fastest way to confirm any claim on this page is to use the registers the regulators already run. On the FCA site (register.fca.org.uk) search "IG Markets Ltd" and the number 195355; the entry should show the firm authorised for the activities listed above. Companies House lists IG Markets Limited under company number 04008957, incorporated on 1 June 2000, with accounts filed annually. For an account booked outside the UK, use the relevant register: BaFin for Germany, ASIC for Australia, the NFA for the US arm.
Two checks prevent most mistakes. First, confirm which legal entity holds your specific account, because the protections differ by entity and by country. Second, read the risk warning and the client asset section on the entity's own pages rather than on a third-party summary. A broker's own disclosure, not a rewrite like this one, is what binds your relationship.
IG is one of the most heavily regulated brokers in retail trading, not a cryptocurrency and not a place to buy coins. Its crypto exposure is a derivative that tracks price, barred to UK retail clients by the FCA since January 2021, and available only to professional or non-UK clients where local rules permit. The safeguards worth knowing are FCA authorisation of three named entities, FSCS cover to £85,000, negative balance protection, and CASS segregation of client cash. Verify the entity on the public register before you treat any "IG crypto" claim as fact, and treat the 69% retail loss ratio as the real starting point for any decision.
Readers comparing brokers should weigh the regulator that would hold their own account alongside the product menu, because the same brand can sit under very different rulebooks depending on where the user lives.