The UK’s tax authority has published its first standalone snapshot of declared cryptoasset profits, and the picture is highly concentrated. In the 2024–25 tax year, 240 people told HM Revenue and Customs they had made more than £1 million each in capital gains from digital assets.
Together, that small group accounted for £717 million — more than half of all crypto gains reported that year.
The figures sit inside HMRC’s annual Capital Gains Tax statistics and exist because Self Assessment returns now include a dedicated section for crypto disposals.
Previously those profits were mixed in with other assets, so officials could not isolate them. In 2024–25, 17,600 individuals reported Capital Gains Tax-liable disposals of assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin.
They recorded £13.8 billion in disposal proceeds and £1.38 billion in taxable gains, an average of about £78,000 per person. Around 87 percent of those filers were men and 13 percent were women.
The headline “millionaire” cohort is tiny relative to the whole group — roughly 1.4 percent of filers — yet it dominates the totals. That skew is typical of volatile markets in which a minority of early or high-conviction holders capture most of the upside when prices rise.
The data only covers what people chose to declare.
It does not measure unreported trading, nor does it capture every type of crypto income, such as mining or staking, which is reported under income tax rules instead.
Officials framed the release as part of a broader push to close the tax gap.
James Murray, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said crypto profits are taxable like any other capital gain and that the government wants people who have made money from digital assets to understand what they owe.
John-Paul Marks, HMRC’s permanent secretary, said the agency wants compliance to be straightforward and warned that new international reporting rules will make undeclared activity harder to hide.
HMRC estimates that education and compliance work already produced an extra £168 million in Capital Gains Tax in 2024–25.
The next step is the OECD’s Cryptoasset Reporting Framework. The United Kingdom began implementing CARF in January 2026.
From 2027, crypto service providers will have to send customer and transaction information to tax authorities.
Firms that fail to comply can face penalties of up to £300 per user.
HMRC says the extra data will help it find undeclared gains and income.
Taxable events already include selling coins, swapping one token for another, spending crypto on goods or services, and certain gifts.
People who still have unpaid crypto tax can use HMRC’s Crypto Disclosure Service.
Filers with reportable crypto income or gains for 2025–26 must include them on Self Assessment and pay by 31 January 2027.
The first official cut of the numbers will not end debate about how large the UK crypto market really is.
It does, however, give policymakers a baseline: a few hundred high earners generated most of the declared profit, while thousands of smaller investors reported more modest gains. As exchange reporting arrives, that baseline will be tested against a fuller picture of who traded, who profited, and who paid.
