A U.K. lawmaker has claimed that the U.K. can have digital asset regulation in place within 12 months, saying the country hopes to capitalize on the benefits that blockchain can bring to the private sector and the economy.
In an interview with CNBC on April 17, Andrew Griffith, the U.K. treasury's economic secretary, said the long-term vision is for sound crypto regulation to "enable businesses to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by cryptoassets."
Griffiths claimed that for the first time in “decades,” the U.K. government is now well-positioned to regulate cryptocurrencies in a “pragmatic” and “proportionate” manner. He also seemed to mention the UK's exit from the EU: "I think the next 12 months or so is the window. We have this huge asset in the UK, we have control over the rulebook - which has been in the UK for decades - so we have the ability to act in a proportionate manner.”
This has led lawmakers to assert that the UK is now in a "growth" mindset to maximize economic efforts from private sector technological innovation.
Griffiths explained that the crypto regulatory framework will combine existing financial assets laws with new crypto-specific rules. “Wherever possible, we would like to see the same assets regulated in the same way, but there are some additional opportunities in the crypto asset or distributed ledger space that we would like to take advantage of.”
He cited the use of fiat-backed cryptocurrencies for settlements contained in the Financial Services Act as an example. "So that's coming sooner than a broader regulatory framework," he added. The potential launch of the U.K.'s proposed central bank digital currency, nicknamed "Britcoin" by the public, has a longer "lead time" and therefore won't be launched within the next year, Griffith said.
Griffiths added that he would like to see a policy debate on privacy and digital pound technology "resolved" to ensure all issues are addressed: "If you're going to have a sovereign digital currency, you have to have the highest level of resiliency and infrastructure, so it's not going to happen overnight." Earlier this week, Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, met Griffith in London to speak on how the UK could "accelerate" its cryptocurrency industry and eventually become an "innovation hub for the Web3 economy."
Coinbase’s ambitions for the UK’s crypto hub align with those of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who explained during his tenure as finance minister last year that he wants to see the UK become a crypto hub.
Dubai, Singapore, and most recently Hong Kong are some of the regions that have striven to become cryptocurrency hubs. On the other hand, since Gary Gensler was sworn in as SEC chairman in April 2021, the United States has significantly stepped up encryption-related enforcement actions.
