The UK’s digital Minister has said that his Government wants the nation to be a major crypto hub in the world while at the same time he says to be cautious and vigilant about the criminal activities in the digital domain.
“We do intend the United Kingdom and London to be crypto hub and centers,” Chris Philp said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday. “But of course, we’ve got to do that in a way that protects the public and pays attention to the issues concerning for example money laundering, and making sure that crypto is not used as a way to circumvent things like sanctions.”
The crypto industry has been accused of regulatory failings and scams over the years. In April, a US regulator said Anchorage Digital Bank, a major cryptocurrency lender, failed to prevent money laundering and also reported suspicious transactions. Both the US and the EU have appointed teams to check and investigate and at times prosecute illicit cryptocurrency schemes.
More recently, the state of the crypto market has been down. For instance, it can be seen through rising interest rates and a series of high-profile blowups like the last month’s collapse of the Terra Blockchain. Bitcoin on Wednesday came close to falling below $20,000 for the first time since December 2020. As per Philp,
“The treasury is working closely with the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Prudential Regulation Authority to make sure that balance is struck in the right way.”
Philp also said that the London Stock Exchange was weathering a pullback from equity markets better than New York’s Nasdaq.
“Nasdaq has actually suffered much more than the London Stock Exchange,” Philp said after talking to a couple of founders and CEOs at London Tech week on Monday who were discussing the fact that their stock price would have been hit much harder had they been Nasdaq listed instead of London listed. The Nasdaq composite index is worth about six times as much as the UK’s All-Share Index and Britain are considering reforms to stop firms listing overseas and make its course more competitive.