The former chancellor said there was a selected lack of regulative structure with regard to digital asset trading. 


A former Chancellor of the UK has raised concerns the country is slipping behind its rivals within the European Union once it involves the regulation of crypto. 

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

“Particularly in the area of digital asset trading, I feel that the UK has missed a trick [...] We are getting very close to the point where it will be too late. Other jurisdictions are racing ahead of us.”

“The drawback is that there are no rules, and no-one quite is aware of where they stand, right? it is a little bit of a wild-west, and has gained, frankly, a mixed name, notably among policymakers and politicians and the public.” 

He also stressed that the development of digital trading infrastructure are key to turning the U.K. into a hub for commerce tokenized traditional assets, like tokenized equities and tokenized bonds. 

“Getting this right, getting the rules around digital commerce right, are an important necessity for being a player within the digitization of ancient monetary assets.” 

“The jurisdictions that have embraced this technology that have regulated it properly and effectively will be the ones that develop these markets and they will become the new hubs.”

The former minister’s criticisms came despite promises from the U.K. government in could to introduce legislation to control the crypto trade. 

Hammond said that while the country has been “very agile in grip new technologies” in the past, this hasn’t been as apparent once it involves crypto regulation, adding that it absolutely was doubtless due to a mixture between a “bandwidth issue” and a “capacity issue.” 

“This may be a very new space of technology. it is very difficult for public sector bodies with public sector pay structures to recruit the best and the brightest into these areas.”

( Felix NG, Cointelegraph, 2022 )