A former chancellor of the United Kingdom is concerned that the development of legislation on cryptocurrencies is slowing down.
Philip Hammond was the British Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019. He reports to Bloomberg that too little is being done so far to design a suitable legal framework for crypto such as bitcoin (BTC).
Former Chancellor and Copper .co advise Philip Hammond says UK is at risk of losing any chance to lead on crypto regulation https://t.co/tqvyZcxfhz
— Bloomberg Crypto (@crypto) June 24, 2022
UK lags behind with crypto regulations
“Especially on the digital asset trading front, I feel the UK has missed a trick. We are approaching the point where it is too late. Other jurisdictions are racing ahead of us.
The problem is, there are no rules, and nobody knows exactly where they stand, right? It’s a bit of the Wild West and, frankly, has developed a mixed reputation, especially among policy makers, politicians and the public.”
According to Hammond, who himself is not new to the crypto sector. He has been working as a senior advisor for copper.co since 2011. start up from London who provides custody and infrastructure services for the digital asset sector.
Hammond also noted that the country has been very flexible in terms of new and innovative technologies in the past, but he sees none of this with crypto. This may be due to a capacity problem.
The cryptocurrency sector is of course a very new form of technology. It is therefore difficult for the government to hire the right people with the right knowledge for this, he admits. To design a fair and proper legal framework for this, you need the best of the best in the industry.
“Personally, I think the [Financial Conduct Authority] FCA should have gone to industry and said we needed secondments. We cannot hire the people we need. We need the industry to equip us with the talent to work out the regimes we need to put in place.”
