Britain counts the people it loses, but listening to crypto founders who leave could reveal what would persuade the next generation to stay.

When I asked Praneet Sinha why he left Britain, he said it came down to operational and financial efficiency. He co-founded his crypto startup, Moongate, in London in 2022. The business planned to collect its fees in crypto, which would mean converting that revenue into fiat to pay salaries and running costs.

“RAK DAO (Ras Al Khaimah Digital Assets Oasis) made more sense for us from a regulatory and business standpoint,” he told me. “It offered a more crypto-friendly environment and tax advantages, particularly around converting crypto revenue into fiat to fund our operating expenses.”

That is why he moved the business from the UK to the UAE, setting up in RAK DAO, a free zone for digital-asset companies in Ras Al Khaimah. He is now based in Abu Dhabi, having moved in August 2024. Moongate Labs Ltd, the UK company, was dissolved in July 2025, and MoonPay acquired the business in June 2026.

Borders constrain ambition less than at any point in living memory, and internet capital markets mean a founder can build from almost anywhere. Yet people are crossing them anyway.

Between 2021 and 2025, Britain lost a net 507,000 of its own nationals, based on ONS long-term migration data. The figure is the cumulative total of annual net losses over those five years, with a provisional 136,000 in 2025 alone.

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