United Kingdom news-Page 9
Law Decoded: The long waves in the aftermath of UST’s crash, May 16-23
It’s been two weeks since the shock of the TerraUSD (UST) depegging, but the long waves of this event are still coming in. The Congressional Research Service described the UST crash as a “run-like” scenario and claimed that the crypto industry has not reached the same level of “adequate regulating” as the traditional finance market. Michael Barr, former advisory board member of Ripple Labs and United States President Joe Biden’s pick for a vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve, definitely agrees with that. During the confirmation hearing, he mentioned “some significant risks” that innovative technologies and cryptocurrencies, in …
Blockchain / May 24, 2022
FCA will ‘absolutely’ consider recent stablecoin depegging when drafting crypto rules: Report
Sarah Pritchard, the executive director of markets at the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, reportedly said that the regulator will look at the recent volatility in the crypto markets when creating rules for the space in 2022. According to a Friday Bloomberg report, Pritchard said the financial regulator will “absolutely” take into account stablecoins like TerraUSD (UST) and Tether (USDT) depegging from the United States dollar in drafting regulatory guidelines with Her Majesty’s Treasury for release later this year. While the USDT price only briefly dropped to $0.97 on May 12, UST has fallen more than 93% since …
Regulation / May 20, 2022
The Lightning Network Lunch: A Bitcoin contactless payment story
The Lightning Network (LN) just got a bit faster, as the suitably named Bolt Card now enables Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts to pay for goods and services using contactless technology. A data analyst at the company behind the card, CoinCorner, took the Bolt card on a trial run on the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea. “MSW” — as he is known — tapped to pay at more than eight point-of-sale (PoS) devices during his lunchtime investigation. It worked like this: For any PoS device showing a Lightning invoice, MSW simply hovered the NFC-enabled Bolt Card …
Adoption / May 18, 2022
Bitcoin investment giant Grayscale debuts ETF in Europe
Crypto investment giant Grayscale is expanding operations by launching a new crypto-linked exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Europe. Grayscale officially announced its first European ETF, called Grayscale Future of Finance UCITS ETF, on Monday. A spokesperson for Grayscale told Cointelegraph that the ETF will begin trading on Tuesday. The new investment product is getting listings on major European stock exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana as well as Deutsche Börse’s electronic trading platform Xetra. Listed under the ticker symbol GFOF, the ETF will also be passported for sale across Europe. An exciting milestone: Announcing our first European ETF, Grayscale …
Adoption / May 16, 2022
UK Treasury en route to legalizing stablecoins amid Terra's UST crash
United Kingdom’s Department of Treasury, or Her Majesty's Treasury, has reportedly decided to go ahead with legalizing stablecoins as a form of payment. While welcomed by the crypto community, the decision comes as a shocker due to its proximity to the recent fall of the popular algorithmic stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST). A local report from The Telegraph highlighted the Treasury’s intent to regulate stablecoins across Britain, which was revealed during the Queen’s Speech. During the speech, Prince Charles announced the introductions of new legislation across various sectors, including measures to drive economic growth to improve living standards in the region, adding: …
Regulation / May 16, 2022
Goldman Sachs and Barclays invest in UK crypto trading platform Elwood
Banking giants Goldman Sachs and the United Kingdom’s Barclays have joined a $70 million Series A funding round for the institutional crypto trading platform Elwood Technologies, founded by billionaire British hedge fund manager Alan Howard. Joining the round was crypto-friendly German bank Commerzbank, crypto investment manager Galaxy Digital and Dawn Capital, as reported by the Financial Times on Sunday. The fundraising round valued the company at around $500 million, according to the report. Despite the recent fall in crypto markets, Elwood said it’s betting that traditional financial institutions such as hedge funds and banks will still be interested in investing …
Trading / May 16, 2022
UK court recognizes NFTs as ‘private property’ — What now?
At the beginning of May, the British Web3 community celebrated an important legal precedent — the High Court of Justice in London, the closest analog to the United States Supreme Court, has ruled that nonfungible tokens (NFT) represent “private property.” There is a caveat, though: In the court’s ruling, this private property status does not extend to the actual underlying content that NFT represents. Cointelegraph reached out to legal experts to understand what this decision could possibly change in the British legal landscape. The theft of Boss Beauties In February 2022, Lavinia D. Osbourne, founder of Women in Blockchain Talks, …
Nft / May 15, 2022
UK government targets crypto in latest legislative agenda
The United Kingdom has introduced two bills, both concerning the seizure of and support for cryptocurrencies as part of Prince Charles' remarks at the State Opening of Parliament. In a Tuesday publication released by the U.K. Prime Minister’s Office, the government said it will address crypto regulation in the country with the introduction of the Financial Services and Markets Bill and theEconomic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. The former aims to strengthen the country’s financial services industry, including by supporting “the safe adoption of cryptocurrencies.” According to the proposed financial services law, the measure will “[cut] red tape in the …
Regulation / May 10, 2022
Number goes up: A third of Brits have bought crypto, says Coinbase report
Bitcoin (BTC) number go up technology is boosting crypto adoption in the United Kingdom. More and more Brits are buying cryptocurrency, according to a Coinbase research piece carried out by Qualtrics. The key takeaways indicate that 33% of British people own crypto, up from 29% in October 2021. Plus, over half, or 61%, of those surveyed intend to increase their holdings over the next 12 months. For Danny Scott, CEO of the United Kingdom's leading Bitcoin exchange, CoinCorner, the statistics "seem incredibly high." Scott suggested that "we're seeing a quiet period from the retail market right now," adding that "when …
Adoption / May 5, 2022
Self-custody, control and identity: How regulators got it wrong
The recent European Union proposal requiring centralized crypto exchanges and custodial wallet providers to collect and verify personal information about self-custodial wallet holders shows the dangers of recycling traditional finance (TradFi) rules and applying them to crypto without appreciating the conceptual differences. We can expect to see more of this as countries look to implement the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule, initially designed for wire transfers, to transfers of crypto assets. The (missing) link between self-custody, control and identity The aim of the proposed EU rules is “to ensure crypto-assets can be traced in the same way as …
Adoption / May 1, 2022
Floki Inu resumes controversial ad blitz in London
Dogecoin (DOGE) rival Floki Inu (FLOKI) has begun what it calls an “aggressive” marketing campaign in London, plastering advertisements around the city’s train stations and on its famous red buses. Floki Inu announced the new campaign in a Sunday blog, noting that “the people’s cryptocurrency” will start advertising on the side of 100 buses and on 203 posters in the city’s underground train stations starting from Monday. #FLOKI's new and aggressive London campaign will start tomorrow Monday, April 25.$FLOKI to be featured on: - 100 buses across the streets of London. - 203 strategic placements across London Underground. These ads …
Business / April 26, 2022
The new HM Treasury regulations: The good, the bad and the ugly
As the 2021-2022 United Kingdom tax year finished on April 5, 2022, Her Majesty's Treasury announced they were paving the way for the U.K. to become a global crypto asset technology hub. This could mean that the previously not particularly crypto-friendly U.K. is changing its strategy and trying its hand at making crypto investments more attractive. But what are the potential scenarios at play? The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a financial regulatory body in the U.K., in its “Cryptoasset consumer research 2021” report, shows that approximately 2.3. million adult U.K. citizens held crypto in 2021, a 21% rise year-over-year. It …
Adoption / April 23, 2022