UK is lagging behind in the cryptocurrency market: Former Chancellor

24-Jun-2022 By: Simran Mishra

UK is lagging behind in the cryptocurrency market: Former Chancellor

Philip Hammond, who served as the United Kingdom's Chancellor of the Exchequer, told sources that there has been a glaring lack of coherence and direction in crypto policy.

"The issue is that there are no rules and no one really knows where they stand, isn't that right? It has, very honestly, acquired a mixed reputation, especially among the public and policymakers and politicians. It reminds one of the wild west," stated Hammond.

He also emphasized the importance of building a digital trading infrastructure to make the UK a center for trading tokenized conventional assets like tokenized bonds and shares.

When it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies, Hammond noted that while the nation has historically been "quite nimble in accepting new technology," this hasn't been as evident. He added that this is probably because of a combination of a "bandwidth issue" and a "capacity issue."

Hammond is no stranger to the cryptocurrency field; since October 2011, he has worked as a senior adviser for copper.co, a start-up company located in London that offers custodial and infrastructure services for the digital asset market.

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