Konstantinos Adamos Discusses Crypto Regulation with IFLR

Winston & Strawn of counsel Konstantinos Adamos was featured in a IFLR article where he discussed his recent move to the firm. Konstantinos previously spent more than five years as head of legal for cryptoassets at the global financial technology company Revolut, where he played a crucial role in the company’s FCA registration in the UK and guided the company in achieving its crypto license issued by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. 

“Having seen that transformation, the degree of work required to achieve MiCA compliance, and conscious that a very similar, if not slightly more complex and demanding regime is coming in the UK, I felt it's the right time to take that experience and leverage it to help a broader range of clients,” Konstantinos said.

“The overall direction in the market is more regulation,” he adds. “I think there's a big population of clients who are very interested in someone with my background, who has commercial and business experience from the world's most valuable privately held fintech.”

Currently based in the firm’s London office, Konstantinos will relocate to the UAE following the transatlantic combination with Taylor Wessing, where he will help build out the digital asset regulatory offering in Dubai and will work with both UK and UAE clients. 

He noted that the region is now a destination for capital, driven by its pro-innovation and pro-business approach. “They have built really strong institutions – the Central Bank of the UAE, ABGM, the Dubai International Financial Centre – they are really world-class regulators,” he says. “As a result of these strong institutions and the rule of law, they have become a destination capital. They call Abu Dhabi ‘the capital of capital’.”

Client demand is increasingly being shaped by regulatory change in the UK and Europe. The upcoming UK regulatory framework for cryptoassets is expected to come into effect in October 2027. Once enforced, the regime will bring cryptoasset activities fully within the scope of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

“The FCA timeline is quite aggressive, quite compressed. The authorizations gateway is anticipated to open in September 2026 – that’s only five months ahead of us. Given the level of work required, it's quite an ambitious timeline,” he said. “I think there will be a lot of UK work. And then, being based in the UAE, I will be developing that practice as well, where there is the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, Abu Dhabi Global Markets, DIFC – the [country] has quite a granular framework for the regulation of cryptoassets.”

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