On 1 February 2023, the HMT published a consultation and call for evidence on the future financial services regulatory regime for crypto-assets. Responses to the consultation must be submitted by 30 April 2023.
On 1 February 2023, the UK’s economic and finance ministry, HMT, published its consultation and call for evidence on the future financial services regulatory regime for crypto-assets (‘the Consultation’). This follows a previous consultation (published in April 2022) on the regulation of fiat-linked stablecoins which HMT refers to as “Phase 1.” The Consultation sets out further details of this Phase 1, as well as proposals to regulate certain other categories of crypto-assets, which HMT refers to as “Phase 2.”
The UK government considers that crypto-assets and the activities underpinning their use should follow the standards expected of other similar financial services activities, commensurate to the risks they pose. The consultation marks the next (but not the final) phase of the government’s approach to regulating crypto-assets and delivers on the government’s commitment to set out proposals for the financial services regulation of crypto-asset investment and trading activities. Thus, the government seeks views from various market participants and users. The present consultation focuses specifically on the future UK regulatory framework for crypto-assets used within financial services, rather than the wider application of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in financial services or the use of crypto-assets outside financial services.
Additionally, HMT published a response (‘the Response’) to its July 2020 consultation on proposals to bring marketing of certain crypto-asset services within scope of the UK financial promotion rules set out in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the FPO). It also published a related statement on the outcome of that consultation (‘the Outcome’) that includes clarifications on the scope of those requirements.
