Former Chancellor says UK is falling behind on crypto opportunity

cointelegraph.com:

A former Chancellor of the United Kingdom has raised concerns the country is slipping behind its rivals in the European Union when it comes to the regulation of crypto.

Philip Hammond, who served as the U.K’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019 told Bloomberg that there has been a distinct lack of direction and cohesion when it comes to crypto policy.

“The problem is that there are no regulations, and nobody quite knows where they stand, right? It's a bit of a wild-west, and has gained, frankly, a mixed reputation, particularly among policymakers and politicians and the public.”

He also stressed that the development of digital trading infrastructure will be key to turning the U.K. into a hub for trading tokenized traditional assets, such as tokenized equities and tokenized bonds.

“Getting this right, getting the rules around digital trading right, will be an essential prerequisite for being a player in the digitization of traditional financial assets.”

The former minister’s criticisms came despite promises from the U.K. government in May to introduce legislation to regulate the crypto industry.

Hammond said that while the country has been “very agile in embracing new technologies” in the past, this hasn’t been as apparent when it comes to crypto regulation, adding that it was likely due to a mix between a “bandwidth issue” and a “capacity issue.”

“This is a very new area of technology. It's very difficult for public sector bodies with public sector pay structures to recruit the best and the brightest into these areas.”

Related: UK government proposes additional safeguards against stablecoin failure risks

“Personally, I think the [Financial Conduct Authority] FCA should have gone to the industry and said we need